Re: 2.3.99pre7-8 experiences
"MD" == Michel =?iso-8859-1?Q?D=E4nzer?= <Michel>
"ACP" == Adam C Powell IV <hazelsct@mit.edu>
ACP> A new one: xscreensaver reports: "X SERVER BUG: 1152x864
ACP> viewport at 289,-291 is impossible"
MD> A viewport at a negative offset doesn't sound sensible to
MD> me, but I may be wrong.
I'm responsible for that error message -- after upgrading
xscreensaver about a year ago, I found that when xscreensaver
started, the screen wouldn't actually blank. When I ran top, and
set xscreensaver to lock the screen, I found that you could see
that a hack was running (by looking at top's display), and that
the machine would lock (intercept keystrokes and mouse movements)
but the screen wasn't blanked, and no dialog appeared when a
dialog would normally be triggered. You could unlock the screen
by triggering the dialog and then typing your password correctly.
It turned out that xscreensaver was getting bogus information from
the X server, and was actually drawing its pretty hacks on a
screen some miles to the left and below my desk here in Vancouver,
B.C. (placing it somewhere deep below the Pacific Ocean, at best,
or perhaps out in space).
Jamie Zawinski's solution was to have xscreensaver check to see if the
viewport being reported seemed reasonable, and if not (if the
viewport had negative numbers, I think), it would simply ignore
the information and print the message you've seen to standard
error.
I still get the message myself, albeit with different numbers for
the viewport. xscreensaver mostly works fine, although it
sometimes draws hacks off-center (leaving a part of the root
window visible). My last error message was:
xscreensaver: X SERVER BUG: 1152x870 viewport at -575,435 is impossible.
xscreensaver: The XVidMode server extension is returning nonsense.
xscreensaver: Please report this bug to your X server vendor.
(I originally got amazingly impossible numbers, such as
-1936862040, -1953705044 (or about 391 miles to the left, and 395
miles below); these days they're much more sensible, only 7.6" to
the left of the screen, and 5.8" above it!
Also, I noticed that Adam's and my screen resolutions are the
same, but I wouldn't read that much into that -- I originally had
the problem at 1024 x 768.)
Um, let's see, PowerCenter 132, built-in ``Platinum'' video, running
ii xserver-common 3.3.6-6 files and utilities common to all X
ii xserver-fbdev 3.3.6-6 X server for framebuffer-based graphics
ii xscreensaver 3.22-5 Automatic screensaver for X
ii xscreensaver-gl 3.22-5 GL(Mesa) screenhacks for xscreensaver
Kernel is
Linux diziet 2.2.15 #1 Thu May 4 15:49:47 PDT 2000 ppc unknown
Hope that helps a bit; let me know if I can provide any more
information.
CMC
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Behind the counter a boy with a shaven head stared vacantly into space,
a dozen spikes of microsoft protruding from the socket behind his ear.
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C.M. Connelly c@eskimo.com SHC, DS
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