[519] in SIPB bug reports
Problem with xscreensaver
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sat May 13 23:15:34 1989
Date: Sat, 13 May 89 23:15:59 EDT
From: Jonathan I. Kamens <jik@Athena.MIT.EDU>
To: mgkelley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: bug-sipb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Matthew G. Kelley's message of Sat, 13 May 89 09:57:27 EDT <8905131357.AA05394@W20-575-84.MIT.EDU>
I have never seen the problem you describe. However, I have seen a
problem that is similar to what you are describing, and what you are
describing could be a side-effect of it.
There is a problem with the communication between the X server and the
xscreensaver on X11R2 X servers (that's what we're running in public
clusters right now). The result of this bug is that on some VAX
workstations, when you hit a key or press a mouse button to get a
password prompt, said prompt will take a *long* time to come up. As
long as ten minutes, some times.
The problem is that when the prompt does not come up, many people
start hitting keys quickly because they think that the program did not
get the key events, and this causes even more problems.
Therefore, the only solution to your problem I can suggest is that if
you hit a key and you don't get a prompt right away, *wait* for it and
*don't hit any other keys*, especially not any keys that would be
counted as part of the password. If you do this, they *will* be
counted as part of the password, even if the prompt has not appeared
yet, and the program therefore will not think you typed the password.
If you must hit a key more than once to get the prompt to come up, use
something like the compose character, shift or control key since these
will not be counted as part of the password.
jik
