Bug 502720

Summary:	Plasma Not Respecting "Do Nothing" for Suspend Session Option on Laptop
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Eamonn Rea <eamonnrea>
Component:	Power management & brightness	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED NOT A BUG
Severity:	normal	CC:	tom.craggs
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	6.3.4
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Eamonn Rea 2025-04-12 17:46:08 UTC

SUMMARY
In the Power Management settings, for both "On AC Power" and "On Battery", I have "When inactive" setting set to "Do Nothing". I have had this set on all of my devices running KDE Plasma for many years.

On my Desktop PC and my laptop, both running KDE Plasma Wayland 6.3.4, I have this setting configured. However on my laptop, this is not respected, and my session still locks after inactivity. I believe it is after around 5 minutes of inactivity. This is NOT observed on my Desktop PC, only on my laptop, and only after updating to Plasma 6.3.X. Prior to this, it worked as expected. It happens regardless of whether I am connected to AC Power or On Battery.

On my Steam Deck, a battery-powered handheld running the latest SteamOS Preview with I believe Plasma 6.2.0, the setting works as expected.

I am not sure why it works on my Desktop PC and not my laptop. Perhaps the presence of a battery is what makes the difference?

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Configure the Power Management settings on a Laptop (and potentially other battery-powered devices) to have their "When inactive" setting set to "Do Nothing".
2. Leave the device inactive.
3. After a short period of time, the device will go to the Lock Screen and, if left long enough, will go into Standby with the screen off.

OBSERVED RESULT
Plasma is not respecting the "When inactive: Do Nothing" setting on some devices. It continues to permit the device to lock.

EXPECTED RESULT
Plasma should respect the "When inactive: Do Nothing" setting, as it has worked on all previous Plasma versions.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: EndeavourOS
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.12.0
Qt Version: 6.9.0
Kernel Version: 6.14.2-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS w/ Radeon 780M Graphics
Memory: 30.7 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon 780M

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- I do not have another laptop to test with on an up-to-date release of KDE Plasma Wayland.
- I understand there were changes, though generally visual, to comply with a recent EU law. However I believe this change is simply to display a warning, and not to change/remove any existing settings or behaviours. It would be disappointing if I had to put up with my device locking after inactivity, when all of my other devices are configured to not do this :(

Comment 1 Eamonn Rea 2025-04-12 18:18:13 UTC

After writing this, I have noticed another problem where the screen doesn't turn off at all when I close the laptop lid. I'm not sure if these issues are related.

I recall another bug around this recently, but I can't find it now.

Comment 2 Tom 2025-04-13 00:08:57 UTC

The setting for the screen lock timer is located separately in System Settings > Security & Privacy > Screen Locking. Could you tell me if you have this setting enabled?

Comment 3 Eamonn Rea 2025-04-13 00:29:32 UTC

Ah! Thank you! Setting this to "Never" resolves the issue. However, I don't think this is the full story:
- This setting is the same on my Desktop PC, but my Desktop PC has never locked its screen in all the time I've had Arch Linux and KDE Plasma installed onto it (~7.5yrs).
- My laptop never locked its screen before a recently Plasma 6.3.X update, so I wonder why now it's changed its behaviour to respect this setting.

Comment 4 Tom 2025-04-13 00:39:26 UTC

I'm glad it's fixed! I'm going to mark this as resolved. While it is unclear how the setting became enabled, this appears to be a user configuration issue rather than a bug.