Black screen after few minutes idle on TS2003

[Ronald Postma]

Hi there,

Situation:
From all over the country people are logging in on a 2003 Terminal Server, If they leave their session alone for a whil (5-10 minutes) the user gets a black screen If they want to do something it takes to almost a minute before they see their desktop again. This is rather annoying.

All windows updates are installed on the server, their are no strange error messages in eventlog.
In the policy screensaver is disabeled and poweroptions are off, screen wil not turn off etc.

Anyone got any clues why this is happening and knows a fix for it?

Futher we had/have another problem, we find a techdoc on that one, it states our axact problem: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=832971

We installed the patch metioned in the artical, but did not resolve it. a workaround we use is to let the sessions enabeld, when the user logs of. Before we installed the patch the same problem with the black screens also happends, so I do not think this has anything to do with it.

Regards,
Ronald

[Dilbert2]

It sounds like the screen saver may be running. When a screen saver is running with Terminal Services, only a blank screen is shown.

You can check by running the attached program on the terminal server which will beep once a second when a screen saver is running. If it is running, you'll want to check the group policies and local preferences are set the way you would like.

Here is the source code if you would rather compile it yourself:

#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0501
#include

void main(void)
{
int bScreenSaverRunning;
while (true) {
SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETSCREENSAVERRUNNING, 0, (PVOID) &bScreenSaverRunning, false);
if (bScreenSaverRunning) {
MessageBeep(1);
}
Sleep(1000);
}
}

Alternatively, you may want to ask which monitors are attached. Older, larger CRTs did take a while to warm up and refresh.

[Ronald Postma]

HI Duane,
I also thoght that it was the screensaver, but it is disabeld in the policy, maybe that does not work, should I run this prgra in the TS session? Just start the probram and do nothing for a while?

It also happens on pc's with a TFT monitor and the local schreensaver is also disabeld there, like my own system where I also tested it.

Regards,
Ronald

[Dilbert2]

Yes. In the Remote Desktop Connection window, run the program. I'd also run it on the client side at the same time.

I've experienced problems applying the group policies for the screen saver in the past.

Attached is a minor update so you don't have to have the audio working.

(There is a fun little bug with XP SP2 where the second user doesn't receive audio in an Remote Desktop Connection window.)

#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0500
#include
#include
#include

void main(void)
{
while (true) {
int bScreenSaverRunning;
SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETSCREENSAVERRUNNING, 0, (PVOID) &bScreenSaverRunning, false);
if (bScreenSaverRunning) {
MessageBeep(1);
time_t aclock;
time( &aclock );
printf("screen saver running at %s\n",asctime( localtime( &aclock ) ));
}
Sleep(1000);
}
}