GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 596026
Locking screen with remote X session fails with XF86VidModeClientNotLocal
Last modified: 2014-08-20 20:24:21 UTC
gnome-screensaver-2.27.0-10.fc12.x86_64 xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.6.99.902-1.fc12.x86_64 1) X server running. 2) ssh -Y username@server /usr/bin/gnome-session 3) Entire GNOME desktop running over the network. 4) gnome-screensaver-command --lock Gdk-ERROR **: The program 'gnome-screensaver' received an X Window System error. This probably reflects a bug in the program. The error was 'XF86VidModeClientNotLocal'. (Details: serial 183 error_code 133 request_code 129 minor_code 15) (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously; that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it. To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.) aborting... gnome-session[5034]: WARNING: Detected that screensaver has left the bus http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-closed@lists.debian.org/msg228836.html A similar bug report for xscreensaver indicates that this problem can be worked around by disabling the fade transition. Jon Mccann indicates that there is no way to disable the fade with gnome-screensaver, so I have not been able to test this.
The screen lock is now implemented directly in gnome-shell, not in gnome-screensaver (as it was with older version of GNOME 3 and GNOME 2.x). If the reported problems persists in recent versions of GNOME, please file a new bug against gnome-shell with the "lock-screen" component selected. If your installation is an older version of GNOME that cannot be upgraded (such as an enterprise version), please use the appropriate support mechanism from your vendor, or your distribution instead.