#1070663 Unable to lock an existing session

Package:
xautolock
Source:
xautolock
Description:
Program launcher for idle X sessions
Submitter:
martin f krafft
Date:
2026-01-10 11:03:38 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1070663#3
Date:
2024-05-06 18:45:51 UTC
From:
To:
This may be related to #1022781 or not.

I have xautolock running:

% ps -fC xautolock
UID          PID    PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
madduck     2733    2421  0 May05 ?        00:00:53 xautolock -time 3 -locker xsecurelock && autorandr -- …

and yet:

% xautolock -locknow
% echo $?
0

It exits 0, but nothing happens. If I use strace on the main
process, there is also zero activity reported.

Moreover, despite being set to lock after 3 minutes, the main
xautolock process does not lock the display.

This has happened multiple times, and each time, only a restart of
the main xautolock process makes things work again. So if I don't
restart the process regularly (daily? hourly?), then occasionally,
the system will not lock as expected, and that is a huge security
problem, hence the critical severity.
#1070663#8
Date:
2024-12-12 18:10:43 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

I cannot reproduce this bug.

Package: xautolock
Version: 1:2.2-8

Dependencies:
ii  libc6:amd64    2.40-4
ii  libx11-6:amd64 2:1.8.10-2
ii  libxext6:amd64 2:1.3.4-1+b2
ii  libxss1:amd64  1:1.2.3-1+b2

$ ps -fC xautolock
UID          PID    PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
nathan     76468       1  0 18:38 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/xautolock
-time 5 -locker /usr/bin/i3lock-fancy -detectsleep

I have a systemd unitfile starting xautolock on boot. It works as expected.

Running manually also works whether the service is started or stopped.

Manual run: both command line `xautolock -locknow` and keyboard shortcut
(through window manager configuration).

Tested on: trixie/sid 6.11.10-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian
6.11.10-1 (2024-11-23) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Best regards,
#1070663#13
Date:
2025-06-19 10:48:52 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Martin and Nathan,

I have tried to run the xautolock process manually with the xsecurelock
and also i3lock-fancy with both examples you provided on a clean
installed trixie rc1 lxqt desktop.

However I cannot reproduce the issue. Both example works and screen
locked with -locknow option. And the -time option also works when
the desktop idle in the minutes specify.

And this is duplicate with #1022781 that already has tags:
moreinfo, security, unreproducible.

The only different from #1022781 is the version was 1:2.2-7.

Here is the changelog:
xautolock (1:2.2-8) unstable; urgency=medium

  [ Debian Janitor ]
  * Fix day-of-week for changelog entry 1:2.2-5.3.
  * Remove constraints unnecessary since buster:
    + Build-Depends: Drop versioned constraint on dpkg-dev and xutils-dev.

  [ Santiago Ruano Rincón ]
  * Fix stray backslash in debian/tests/help (Closes: #1022971)
#1070663#20
Date:
2026-01-10 10:10:41 UTC
From:
To:
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