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Screensaver/Expose issues

Dave Scocca (apparently) - 02:12am Aug 30, 2008 PST
via email

Intermittently, over the last few months, I've had a pair of seemingly related
issues that I can't explain and can't figure out how to resolve. I'm running
Tiger 10.4.11 on a Power Mac G4 tower.

Symptom #1: when it comes time for the screen saver to kick on, the screen
saver appears for a moment, then the screen goes blank for a moment, and the
process repeats indefinitely. So it looks as if the screen is "flashing" back
and forth between the screen saver and the blank screen. The screen saver is
re-starting every time--I use the built-in "Flurry", and the drawn image
re-starts each time.

Symptom #2: my Expose/Dashboard keys (F9-F12) stop working. The volume/eject
keys continue to work normally. Neither restarting the Finder nor restarting
the Dock works to restore the keys--I have to log out and back in again.

Evidence:

When the flashing screen saver happens, I find a long series of entries in
/var/log/windowserver.log like the following:

Aug 28 04:47:40 [14653] "loginwindow" (0x3e03) set hot key operating mode to
normal
Aug 28 04:47:40 [14653] Hot key operating mode is now normal
Aug 28 04:47:40 [14653] "loginwindow" (0x3e03) set hot key operating mode to
all disabled
Aug 28 04:47:40 [14653] Hot key operating mode is now all disabled
Aug 28 04:47:40 [14653] "loginwindow" (0x3e03) set hot key operating mode to
normal
Aug 28 04:47:40 [14653] Hot key operating mode is now normal
Aug 28 04:47:40 [14653] "loginwindow" (0x3e03) set hot key operating mode to
all disabled
Aug 28 04:47:40 [14653] Hot key operating mode is now all disabled

I assume that:

(a) this switching back and forth between "hot key operating modes" is
responsible for the flashing screen saver, and

(b) the fact that a sequence eventually ends with the "all disabled" message
explains my loss of Expose/Dashboard keys.

(Once I've lost my Expose/Dashboard keys, pressing the keys unsuccessfully, as
far as I can tell, does not produce a log message anywhere.)

Has anyone seen anything like this? Is there something else that I might have
installed that would be the culprit?

The obvious answer is to upgrade myself to Leopard--which I plan to do
eventually, but not immediately--but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions
about what might be going on.

Dave Scocca

Mark as Read

johnbaxterlists (apparently) - Aug 30, 2008 7:58 am (#1 Total: 1)

via email

Posts: 678

Re: Screensaver/Expose issues

On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 3:12 AM, Dave Scocca <dave

scocca.org> wrote:

> Symptom #1: when it comes time for the screen saver to kick on, the screen
> saver appears for a moment, then the screen goes blank for a moment, and the
> process repeats indefinitely. So it looks as if the screen is "flashing" back
> and forth between the screen saver and the blank screen. The screen saver
> is re-starting every time--I use the built-in "Flurry", and the drawn image
> re-starts each time.
>
> Symptom #2: my Expose/Dashboard keys (F9-F12) stop working.>
> The obvious answer is to upgrade myself to Leopard--which I plan to do
> eventually, but not immediately--but I was wondering if anyone had
> suggestions about what might be going on.

Step 1 would seem to be to switch keyboards (borrow a friend's
keyboard if necessary).

If that fails, step 2 would be to compare your careful log of
installations done and settings changed against the start day of the
problem. (No, I don't have such a log either.)

--John

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