Since the upgrade to KDE SC 4.10 the screensavers which take a screenshot of the desktop and alter it, don't work anymore. Examples are "Science" (kscience from kscreensaver) and "Slide Screen" (from xscreensavers). Instead of showing the desktop they show a black screen with the new locker and alter that screenshot. It does work as expected via the "Test" button, screenshot is taken correctly, but it does not work when the screensaver starts automatically. "Require password after:" is not ticked. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Choose "Science" screensaver and test it - it's ok, desktop is shown with that wandering whirl. 2. Set automatic start to e.g. 2 minutes and wait. 3. Screen turns black, locker dialog appears - and then the whirl wanders over the black locker screen. Actual Results: I have a black screen with the locker dialog in the middle and on top of that screen the saver is executed. Expected Results: Screensaver should show deskop, as it was before, not black locker screen.
After the latest update the picture is not black anymore, instead the default KDE SC wallpaper (which I do not use on any virtual desktop in the current activity) is used. Still it shows the locker on it, not my desktop.
Same here with Kubuntu 13.04, also KDE SC 4.10. The Science screensaver works fine and shows my desktop when I test the screensaver but as soon as it activates by its own it shows the new locker instead of my desktop.
The "phosphors" screensaver apparently does not draw the entire screen, but only where characters are to be printed or scrolled. The background used to (correctly) be black, but it is now (4.10) a screenshot of the locker screen; there are also pixels on the right and bottom never overwritten by the scrolling text (big font, numerical rounding effects). The final visual effect is embarassing.
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Happens with 4.11.1 too. I wanted to use the OpenGL saver to turn the desktop in 3d :(. It doesn't capture the desktops and turns the picture, it just captures the boring lock screen. Isn't it possible to take a screenshot of the desktop *before* the lock screen starts when the lock screen/a screensaver is triggered? 1. capture screen, 2. start the lock screen (if really has to) and 3. start the screensaver with the screenshot?
The screen locker architecture changed with Plasma 5. The classic screen savers are no longer supported. The 4.x series won't see any further feature development, so this bug report won't be implemented as it doesn't apply to our current version any more. I want to thank you for your bug report and for helping improving the quality of our software and I'm sorry that we were not able to provide a fix before we retired the affected component.