Timeout until screen blanks setting does nothing

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Have same problem with Ubuntu 16.04 with XFCE4 DE. I'm trying to set `screensaver-timeout` parameter in seconds and it does nothing.

I'm trying to use it with xscreensaver.

@dnord: This has nothing to do with xscreensaver, so not sure in how far that comment is helpful.

Regarding the actual bugreport: the screensaver-timeout setting only takes effect when the greeter is used as a lockscreen. So at login the setting is not honoured at all, instead the system default values are taken.
This is also why the behaviour of the greeter will differ between logging out and locking your session with respect to the screensaver.

So I would not categorize this as a bug, because the code is specifically written to work this way. Instead I would consider this a feature request.

Simon, What is the "system default value" that you mention, and where is it set?

John, I think the greeter just inherits whatever screen blanking settings the X server started with (and I'm not sure how to change that).

I created a shell script with "xset s 60" in it and set the "greeter-setup-script" option in lightdm.conf to point to that script. That seemed to blank the screen after 60 seconds on the main login screen.