I have a box running kodi in standalone mode with X11. My TV displays “no signal” if I leave it for too long, does anyone know how to stop this from happening?

I can still ssh into the box and use the remote app Kore so the system hasn’t suspended or anything like that.

Pressing up/down etc on the kore remote, which should change what is displayed on screen, doesn’t wake kodi up. However, I can wake it up if I tell Kodi to play a video.

  • @AlpacaChariotOPEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    Thanks, I will try this and let you know if it works. The file didn’t exist so I created it with the following contents because I saw online the option is supposed to go in the monitor section:

    Section “Monitor” # Identifier “???” Option “dpms” “false” EndSection

    I don’t know what the identifier should be so I haven’t set it.

    ---- edit

    That didn’t work for me, I got this error and kodi won’t start

    [ 4.485] Parse error on line 6 of section Monitor in file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf This section must have an Identifier line. [ 4.485] (EE) Problem parsing the config file [ 4.485] (EE) Error parsing the config file [ 4.485] (EE) Fatal server error: [ 4.485] (EE) no screens found(EE) [ 4.485] (EE) Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support at http://wiki.x.org for help. [ 4.485] (EE) Please also check the log file at “/var/log/Xorg.0.log” for additional information. [ 4.485] (EE) [ 4.485] (EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.

    I can’t work out what that display should be called though

    kodi@kodi:~$ sudo xrandr Can’t open display

    kodi@kodi:~$ sudo xdpyinfo | grep -A4 ‘^screen’ >xdpyinfo: unable to open display “”.

    Any ideas?

    • @[email protected]English
      1•1 year ago

      I spent a few years looking for this solution. I will be able to check the exact config on that system tomorrow. If I forget to reply just send me a message.

      The system has an intel onboard gpu, some low powered cpu with hdmi out. It’s running Arch with Mesa drivers, hooked directly to TV.

      • @AlpacaChariotOPEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        Thanks, I’m pretty sure I found a solution a few years ago but didn’t write it down. Then the drive failed so I had to set everything up from scratch again!

    • @AlpacaChariotOPEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Apparently you can put whatever you like in the identifier field and it’s not verified by X. So I changed to

      Section “Monitor” Identifier “TV” Option “dpms” “false” EndSection

      That got rid of the error but it still wasn’t working.

      Trying another method with xset:

      kodi@kodi:~$ xset -dpms xset: unable to open display “”

      I figured out I need to specify a display since I’m connecting with ssh:

      DISPLAY=:0 xset -q

      This shows me that dpms was still on even after rebooting with the /etc/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf file in place.

      Anyway I ran the following commands:

      DISPLAY=:0 xset -dpms DISPLAY=:0 xset s off DISPLAY=:0 xset s noblank DISPLAY=:0 xset s noexpose DISPLAY=:0 xset s 0 0

      The commands are explained here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Display_Power_Management_Signaling

      Now an xset query returns:

      kodi@kodi:~$ DISPLAY=:0 xset -q Keyboard Control: auto repeat: on key click percent: 0 LED mask: 00000000 XKB indicators: 00: Caps Lock: off 01: Num Lock: off 02: Scroll Lock: off 03: Compose: off 04: Kana: off 05: Sleep: off 06: Suspend: off 07: Mute: off 08: Misc: off 09: Mail: off 10: Charging: off 11: Shift Lock: off 12: Group 2: off 13: Mouse Keys: off auto repeat delay: 660 repeat rate: 25 auto repeating keys: 00ffffffdffffbbf fadfffefffedffff 9fffffffffffffff fff7ffffffffffff bell percent: 50 bell pitch: 400 bell duration: 100 Pointer Control: acceleration: 2/1 threshold: 4 Screen Saver: prefer blanking: no allow exposures: no timeout: 0 cycle: 0 Colors: default colormap: 0x20 BlackPixel: 0x0 WhitePixel: 0xffffff Font Path: /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi,built-ins DPMS (Energy Star): Standby: 600 Suspend: 600 Off: 600 DPMS is Disabled

      I also added the commands above to ~/.xinitrc so hopefully they will be run automatically every time

      – edit:

      So, although those xset commands work I have to run them every time, the commands in .xinitrc clearly aren’t being run.

      I have a feeling this is because kodi is being started using xinit run from a systemd unit file so it isn’t reading /kodi/home/.xinitrc.

      So the plan is to set the home environment variable in the unit file (like below) and see if that works. Will test when the box is free.

      Environment=“HOME=/home/kodi”