During slideshow screen went black

[disciple]

Maybe you could post a list of the programs that are running in the background, so we can see if there is anything unusual, that might be causing this.

[trio]

The "No Blankscreen 1.0" feature was not located under any menu item. I also could not find anything that even resembled it under any of the sub menu's. Please be more explicit as to where that feature is located.

run:

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fixmenus

and restart window manager after install?

[Barq's]

Disciple

Maybe you could post a list of the programs that are running in the background, so we can see if there is anything unusual, that might be causing this.

I do not know how to do this. How do I obtain a list of running programs?

trio

You just went over my head, so I guessed that RUN: fixmenus means open a consule window and type fixmenus and hit enter (did that) as far as restart windows manager...I guessed that meant restart JWM (did that) Nothing changed. What was I really supposed to do here?

[trio]

well, that's how you do it. If I remember correctly menu item should be under desktop group. Anyway, what puppy are you on?

Another way is to run:

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noblankscreen

[npierce]

Okay, it looks like there are at least a couple of problems happening here, and the combination of their symptoms makes it hard to see either problem clearly.

One problem is the "No Analog Signal" problem, which is probably related to DPMS. But since your screen is now blanking before you get the "No Analog Signal" message, we need to deal with this new problem first.

Your new problem would not be related to DPMS, nor do I think it is related to the "xset s off" in your startup script. If DPMS or the screensaver built into the X server kicked in, you would not still see a cursor on the screen.

Have you recently removed some images or increased the rate at which the images change?

How many image files are in the directory?

Do the images change at the rate of once every 5 seconds? (This is probably the case, since it is the usual rate, and it is not something that you can change in Puppy Screensaver Setup.)

Try the following 3 commands. Note that you will need to use your Esc key (as you do from the screensaver) to exit. Note also that there is a period just before the slash at the end of the second command. Your first image should appear with a pair of numbers in the lower right-hand corner -- for instance "1/246". What numbers do you see?

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pushd /usr/local/PuppyBasicScreensaver02/resource/slideshow/
slideshow -name -sort n+ -recurse ./
popd
 

If the second number is less than 300 or so, your new problem may be related to the screensaver itself.

Finally, when the screensaver goes blank with the cursor still on the screen, or when it "freezes" on one image, what happens when you click the right mouse button?

Depending upon the answers to these questions, I may have a possible solution.

[Barq's]

I am running 4.2

I'm in a rush to get out of town and will not return until Sunday. I will run the tests and post results of what I learn then.

Have a good week end

Thank you

[Barq's]

in the consule window I ran; noblankscreen and noblackscreen twice each
Results "command not found" all four times

Three are six images in the background folder, I have not removed any nor have I increased the rate at which the images change, however, I did slow it down to once every 15 seconds (see http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 19&t=41187). I have timed the rate and it seems to hold it pretty well, although I also made them random and every now and then the same image will be selected multiple times in a row and it will remain on the screen for some multiple of 15 seconds.

I then ran
pushd /usr/local/PuppyBasicScreensaver02/resource/slideshow/

It returned; /usr/local/PuppyBasicScreensaver02/resource/slideshow ~

I then ran slideshow -name -sort n+ -recurse ./

The numbers in the bottom right corner were 1/240

I do not know what that means.

I then ran popd

and it returned
~
#

As for the last question regarding what happens when I right click after a freeze...I will test that tomorrow as it is very late and I am having great difficulty keeping my eyes open tonight.

[npierce]

. . . it is very late and I am having great difficulty keeping my eyes open tonight

Good morning, Barq's,

Eye's rested?

Thanks for sending the results of your testing.

The "1/240" in the bottom right corner indicates that slideshow is displaying the first of 240 images.

Why 240? Why not 6?

Apparently the sceensaver does not have the ability to loop built into its code. It does, however, have the ability to seek-out images in subdirectories. (That's what the "-recurse" inside mod_slideshow.pbas is for.) The soft link named "loop" in the /usr/local/PuppyBasicScreensaver02/resource/slideshow/ directory has the value "../". This, in effect, makes /usr/local/PuppyBasicScreensaver02/resource/slideshow/ a sub-sub-directory of itself, and a sub-sub-sub-sub-directory of itself, and a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-directory of itself, and a . . . Well, you get the picture.

So slideshow thinks that you have many more than six images.

But why 240? Why not an infinite number?

Unfortunately, that looping cannot go on forever. For me, anyway, (and apparently for you as well) the slideshow code gives up after 39 times. This means that all of the images in the directory are displayed 40 times. If I have six images in the directory, slideshow will think I have 240. If it displays one every 5 seconds, that will take 20 minutes. Then the slideshow stops on the final image.

(It is lucky that the slideshow code eventually gives up, or else it would spend infinity building its list of images, and never display any.)

Note that if you previously ran at the default "-advance" rate of 5 seconds, the screensaver would stop after 20 minutes, which is also, coincidentally, the default delay before DPMS kicks in and blanks the monitor.

Now that you slowed things down to change the image every 15 seconds, the screensaver should run for an hour before stopping. Of course, if DPMS or something else causes the screen to go blank first, you won't see it running that long.

This does not explain why, last Thursday, it was stopping for you after only ten minutes. Is it still doing that today?

Puppy 4.3.1 has a file called DarkGrey.jpg in the /usr/share/backgrounds/ directory. Is that one of the images you were using last Thursday?

What to try now?

Go ahead, as you were planning to do this morning, and see what a right-click does after a freeze. It is supposed to display the previous image. More right-clicks will continue to display previous images. Left-clicks will then display the next image (until, of course, you get to the last image). (Mouse clicks can also be used while the screen saver is running, but will stop the timer that advances the images. Press 't' to start it again.)

Don't forget to disable DPMS, before letting the screensaver kick-in, as you have done before with:

xset -dpms

or

xset dpms 0 0 0

(As you have already noticed, restarting the xserver enables DPMS, so don't restart it. If you find that one of those two commands works for you, you may add it to your startup script.)

[Barq's]

npierce

Thank you for the explanation of what is going on, it does raise another issue that I will elaborate on at the end of this missive.

I ran the tests as follows;

with dpms enabled I waited for a black screen (Note: the cursor went away this time) then without moving the mouse I right clicked and the screen saver reappeared. multiple right clicks kept changing the picture shown.

I let it sit and run for several hours, when I returned the screen was black and the cursor gone but a right click brought back the images.

With dpms disabled I waited about two hours (it appeared to hang on a dark gray screen with the cursor still present) and again the right click brought the images back. However, the images ceased to cycle after that.

I'm going to let it run all night with dpms disabled and see what it is like in the morning.

Now I have a question about how this screensaver really works. You mentioned that it cannot actually loop through the pictures endlessly. One of my reasons that I am so interested in a slideshow screen saver is to install this on and i-opener and use it as a picture frame in our church where it would sit and scroll through pictures of the holy land for weeks on end. If I understand your discription for how this woks, I would have to have extreme numbers of pictures with very long cycle times in order for this to approximate such a feat and even then I would have to reboot every so often since i-opener keyboard does not have an ESC key.

[disciple]

I would have to have extreme numbers of pictures with very long cycle times in order for this to approximate such a feat

Or lots of copies of them, or possibly you could get them to display more times by an arrangement with symlinks - I don't know how the 40 loop limitation works.

Or you could modify the program to loop endlessly; I would have thought this would be fairly trivial. Or you could persuade someone else to modify it - surely you have some Basic coders in your church ?
BTW has anyone pointed out this limitation to MU (who I think wrote the program)?

Or you could install an alternative screensaver program that doesn't have this limitation - maybe xscreensaver?

Or you could install another slideshow program that isn't necessarily a "screensaver"... you're just using this computer for displaying pictures, aren't you? So it doesn't need to autostart after a certain period of inactivity, does it?
IIRC qiv can loop endlessly. Even if you don't get a program that does, you can write a shell script that will run it endlessly. Try running this in a terminal

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while $notest; do echo hello; echo goodbye; done

I could be wrong, but I think it will go on forever. So I think you should be able to use a similar command to run any program repeatedly forever. e.g. if you're using qiv,

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while $notest; do qiv [whatever_your_qiv_arguments_and_options_are]; done

I haven't looked at it, but I'm guessing puppyscreensaver calls a separate program to play the slideshow, so you should be able to call that program directly.

[disciple]

you should be able to use a similar command to run any program repeatedly forever

Sorry, not any program... obviously whatever puppyscreensaver is using doesn't exit when it gets to the end of the slideshow, so you'd want to find something that either does that, or can loop continuously itself.

[disciple]

I read that GQview has a repeat preference for its slideshow.

[npierce]

With dpms disabled I waited about two hours (it appeared to hang on a dark gray screen with the cursor still present) and again the right click brought the images back. However, the images ceased to cycle after that.

Okay, well it looks like you have made it past the twenty-minute DPMS barrier anyway. Good. That's one problem resolved.

And the fact that a right-click will take you back through the images indicates that the slideshow is still alive and has not crashed, but apparently reached the end of its list of images.

It seems like the "dark gray screen with the cursor still present" is one of your images, which happens to be the last one displayed. Is one of your images dark gray, such as DarkGrey.jpg?

Anyway, you are correct in your understanding that, as it is, this screensaver may not be easily used for your need of running "for weeks on end."

So what are your alternatives?

My advice is to take disciple's advice. Although all of his suggestions are good, his last one would be my favorite.

I installed gqview-2.0.4 (on Puppy 4.3.1), tried it out, and it looks like it might be just what you need. After installing it, you may start it in full-screen slideshow mode with the following command:

gqview -s -f /usr/share/backgrounds/

While running, pressing 's' will toggle the slideshow mode, and pressing 'f' will toggle full-screen mode. You will need to exit full-screen mode to choose your repeat, random, and delay preferences (Edit -> Preferences). Note that before your new preferences will take effect, you may have to press 's' once or twice to restart the slideshow mode.

GQview has a fairly good user guide at http://gqview.sourceforge.net/docs/index.html

Should you decide to continue with PuppyBasicScreensaver02, you could, as disciple has pointed out, add some symlinks to convince slideshow that you have more images. For instance, the following two commands would double the number of images, and so double the length of time it would run.

cd /usr/local/PuppyBasicScreensaver02/resource/slideshow
ln -s /usr/share/backgrounds/ backgrounds002

That would raise the number of images from 240 to 480. Similarly creating backgrounds003 would give you another 240, for a total of 720. But you would have to create hundreds of these symlinks to get it to run for a week or more. And it is possible that you might run into other limitations. So this is not the ideal solution.

You would be better off with one of disciple's other suggestions, like finding someone to modify slideshow (the program that the screensaver calls for its slideshow module). Or perhaps the author of slideshow, Jeremy Stanley (http://www.xmission.com/%7Ejstanley/mail.html), would be willing to add this feature. Or perhaps MU (on this forum), who I think is the person who created this screensaver, would have an idea.

But the quickest solution for you is probably to try another program. As mentioned earlier, I think GQview, as suggested by disciple, would serve your needs. But the other programs mentioned by disciple might be as good or better -- I've just not tried them.

Let us know how you make out.

Good luck.

[npierce]

. . . i-opener keyboard does not have an ESC key.

If your Pizza key isn't doing anything useful, you can turn it into an ESC key. First, execute this command:

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ls /root/.Xmodmap

If the result is "No such file or directory" it is safe to execute these two commands:

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echo "keycode 115 = Escape" > /root/.Xmodmap
xmodmap /root/.Xmodmap

That's all: you now have an ESC key. This will survive X server restarts. If you later decide you don't like it, simply remove /root/.Xmodmap and restart the X server.

BTW has anyone pointed out this limitation to MU (who I think wrote the program)?

Yes, although the limitation is actually in the slideshow program, which his screensaver uses as a module, and which I believe was written by someone else.

[Barq's]

et. al.

The over night run was frozen on the grey screen with the cursor still present.

Puppy 4.3.1 has a file called DarkGrey.jpg in the /usr/share/backgrounds/ directory. Is that one of the images you were using last Thursday?

Yes, I also have an image called LightGrey.jpg in the same folder which I was using and it hung on that one once as well.

Or you could modify the program to loop endlessly; I would have thought this would be fairly trivial. Or you could persuade someone else to modify it - surely you have some Basic coders in your church

I just did some research into what it would take to learn visual basic and came to the obvious conclusion that modifying this program is way over my head, in fact I would wager it was probably written in "C" or something like that. I'm not a code warrior and unfortunately our congregation is very tiny and that seems to be a talent which is not present therein.

you could install an alternative screensaver program that doesn't have this limitation - maybe xscreensaver?

I was trying to avoid xscreensaver because this board blasts it for being an overly bloated pig (or something to that effect) and the i-opener is only a 200 Mhz machine.

you could install another slideshow program that isn't necessarily a "screensaver"... you're just using this computer for displaying pictures, aren't you? So it doesn't need to autostart after a certain period of inactivity, does it?

I'm actually installing this on two machines, only one of which is being used as a picture screen and even it has a secondary function, that being to host an application called e-sword for the occasional student to study scripture from multiple different bibles in a comparative fashion. Consequently it would be best if the users did not need to know how to turn on and off the slideshow.

IIRC qiv can loop endlessly. Even if you don't get a program that does, you can write a shell script that will run it endlessly. Try running this in a terminal
Code:

Code: Select all

while $notest; do echo hello; echo goodbye; done

I could be wrong, but I think it will go on forever. So I think you should be able to use a similar command to run any program repeatedly forever. e.g. if you're using qiv,
Code:

Code: Select all

while $notest; do qiv [whatever_your_qiv_arguments_and_options_are]; done

I haven't looked at it, but I'm guessing puppys creensaver calls a separate program to play the slideshow, so you should be able to call that program directly.

I was about to say that this was over my head but I would play with it and see what i could make happen. But then I noticed your next post basically retracts this statement, so I will not try this.

So what are your alternatives?

My advice is to take disciple's advice. Although all of his suggestions are good, his last one would be my favorite.

I will try and get GQview up and running as my backup plan. But my preference is the tiny slideshow screensaver for the reasons stated above.

you could, as disciple has pointed out, add some symlinks to convince slideshow that you have more images.

however

You would be better off with one of disciple's other suggestions, like finding someone to modify slideshow

I will attempt to contact both of the parties suggested and see if either would be willing to make the modifications.

If your Pizza key isn't doing anything useful, you can turn it into an ESC key.

That sounds sweet!

I will be out of town (and thus off-line) again this weekend, leaving early tomorrow, but I will have access to the i-opener one evening and will see if I can turn the pizza key into an ESC key.

I will report back when I am able to get back on-line (which should be late Sunday evening).

Thank you

[Barq's]

et. al.

I have contacted the author of the slideshow and he is willing to fix the loop back issue I have also left a message for MU to see if he will incorporate the updated slideshow into the screensaver. I am hopping to hear from MU very soon, and will keep you all posted.

With regard to reprogramming the the pizza button into an ESC key....it did not work, but I have not given up yet, after all I'm the one that has to climb the learning curve here and thus the most probable cause for the failure would be me (I hate admitting that).

[npierce]

It is good to hear that you are making progress on getting a real looping feature for slideshow.

Too bad that my Pizza key advice failed you.

Perhaps the keycode I gave you was incorrect for your i-opener. I do not have an i-opener, but found the value 115 on the web, given for the i-opener Pizza key. Maybe yours is different. (On my keyboard, keycode 115 is the key with the Windows logo on it. When I execute the given commands, that key functions as ESC.)

To find out what keycode is correct, you could use xev. Recent Puppy releases don't have xev, but someone posted it here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... h&id=12635

Open the file with pupzip, extract xev to /tmp/ and execute this command:

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/tmp/xev

A window named "Event Tester" will appear. Press and release the Pizza Key. You should see something like this in your rxvt window"

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KeyRelease event, serial 29, synthetic NO, window 0x2000001,
    root 0x55, subw 0x0, time 1761708102, (195,237), root:(373,434),
    state 0x0, keycode 115 (keysym 0xff1b, Escape), same_screen YES,
    XKeysymToKeycode returns keycode: 9
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (1b) "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

The third line is the important one. After "state 0x0, keycode" is the keycode for your Pizza key.

[Barq's]

npierce et. al.

Do not be so hasty to assume that your advice was poor, I'm the non-code warrior here and unfortunately the odds are that I'm the one that messed up the code somehow, fortunately I'm kind of the dogged type and still have not given up. However, I will run the latest test you suggest just to make sure. Unfortunately I will not get to run that test until this weekend since that is the only time I have access to the i-opener. All tests that are not i-opener specific I can run on my other machine at home.

Another change for this weekend is that I will be taking a USB ethernet adapter for the i-opener and attempting to route some cat5 cable into the library. If I'm successful I will not have to be off-line the whole weekend.

Another bright note is that MU has agreed to incorporate the tweaked slideshow this weekend (assuming that it gets tweaked by then)

[Barq's]

et. al.

I have not yet heard from Jeremy or Mu regarding any progress with the slidshow or screensaver, but I finally succeeded at getting the cat5 installed to the i-opener this weekend. Unfortunately I'm having ethernet driver problems which I had not expected. I will hammer away at it and let you know of any progress on any front.

[npierce]

Thanks, Barq's, for the progress report. Good luck on getting your network connection working.

(By the way, if you have no luck with the Pizza key, perhaps you have another unused key that could be remapped to ESC. Of course, if you already have a satisfactory work-around to your lack of ESC key, that won't be necessary.)