Zorin Core 16 : Prevent the screen saver while watching a movie with VLC

[chrlyc]

Hi there,

I'm using VLC to watch movies.
I just realized that the system goes on screen saver mode event when I'm watching a video in full screen mode with VLC (I think it was not the case last week and it might have been induced by the last updates).

Is there any trick to go around that ? (the screensaver option are so few...)

Thanks !

[Aravisian]

@chrlyc

(I think it was not the case last week and it might have been induced by the last updates).

Nah, this is an old problem that gets asked about on occasion...
For me, personally... I do not like the many intrusions of the Screensaver, so I just disable it entirely:

xset dpms 0 0 0

Or

xset s 0 0

If you prefer to keep the screensaver as a functional utility, you can set it to a Longer Interval.

[zabadabadoo]

Or you can fool it by running Caffeine. Which simulates mouse movement thereby screensaver never triggers when it is running.
Ref:

Remove blank screen after inactivity

Not sure if you are using a laptop or not. But if you are, check Settings>Power that blank screen is not set 15min (as mine is). [blanksc] I’m not a user of Caffeine on my Linux rig, but have used it successfully on a work PC under Windows, to keep display alive during presentations etc. Long story, but corporate IT Admin installed Caffeine rather than change power settings for one staff member. I assume this Caffeine app is the same thing for Linux, which simulates small mouse movement to fo…

That refers to Z15 but should still be available and work on Z16.

[Aravisian]

@zabadabadoo

Or you can fool it by running Caffeine.

Zab, you rock.

I had forgotten about Caffeine.

[v1ktor]

It's been a while since I used VLC, didn't it have an option to "Disable screensaver"?

[Jeslin]

Yes, but I believe that it is supposed to be enabled by default. The OP can check if it is enabled by going to tools > preferences and then in show settings select "all". Then scroll down and click on video and the on right check if it is enabled.

[chrlyc]

Hi all,

OK, so : It happened that I installed VLC with synaptic (with all the dependencies of course).
But surprisingly, according to VLC official webpage, this is not the recommended method.

I then uninstalled vlc with synaptic and installed it with snap :
sudo snap install vlc

And the problem is now solved.