Aerial 🚀 - Can't exit screensaver without using force quit.

Hi @BorBorBor

Can you clarify which version of Aerial you use ? You may want to try the latest beta if you haven't.

Can you tell me also if you have right arrow to skip enabled or not ? And if you tried enabling/disabling it ?

In general, it's the system that kills Aerial when you press a key, not the other way around. It looks like some things changed in 10.14.4 with some specific settings in mission control. You can have a look at this thread and particularly this post : https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/768#issuecomment-491473659

glouel on 6 Jul 2019

Hey @glouel, this is on version 1.5.0. I had the right arrow on, but I have changed it now.

Settings are the same in the comment you link. The issue is not exactly the same one, since the poster of that thread can quit with the mouse and I cannot.

Something to maybe remark is that I have password / touch ID turned on for disabling the screen saver.

BorBorBor on 8 Jul 2019

@BorBorBor
Indeed, I didn't catch that mouse didn't help, sorry. So probably not the "right key" thing, we don't intercept mouse presses.

May I suggest you disable "Auto install updates while the screen saver runs" in Advanced (it's enabled by default). Some people seem to see some misbehaving because of that option (which is weird knowing 1.5.0 is the latest available in non beta form), perhaps that could be it too ? I'm refering to that long thread https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/814

As best I can tell, password to go out of screensaver may not interact well with what I do with Sparkle. So let me know if that one helps.

glouel on 8 Jul 2019

Hi @glouel, thanks again for replying. I've disabled that 'auto install' option and see whether it disappears. It is hard to know if it fully worked since the issue does not happen all the time, but I'll let you know if it seems gone.

Password for exiting has been on for me since I have installed Aerial more than 2 years ago, and I would rather not disable it as I need to lock my computer for security reasons. So I'll try that later if it is really necessary.

BorBorBor on 8 Jul 2019

Ok the fact you've been using for 2+ years make it more likely it's the Sparkle auto update thing misbehaving (introduced in 1.4.8). Just keep me posted in a bit if you think it fixes the issue (or if it does not) and we'll see what we can do next. Thanks

glouel on 8 Jul 2019

@BorBorBor by any chance, are you using Little Snitch or another firewall ? The (slightly) related issue regarding Sparkle was linked to Little Snitch not having the correct rule set for the background update.

My guess is that Little Snitch (or your firewall) may try to pop a window to ask if you want to allow the connection and that grabs the focus from system, which in turn makes it impossible for system to pass the keystroke to us.

Disabling "Auto install updates while the screen saver runs" in Advanced, as you did, should have done the trick for you already (as long as your videos were cached, if they weren't, probably had the same issue on trying to download a new video).

glouel on 15 Jul 2019

Hey @glouel, I was offline for a few weeks (as one does in the summer ;-)).

No, I do not use a firewall other than the default macOS one. I _do_ use the app AntiRSI which gives me a popup to take a work break every once in a while, so that might be it, but I have also been using that app consistently for years so I would also not imagine so.

Because I did not use my computer a lot the past time I can't say if the issue is remedied by turning off the updates or not.

BorBorBor on 25 Jul 2019

@BorBorBor no worries, please let me know in a few days if disabling updates fixed it or not.

Regarding AntiRSI, one question, do you happen sometimes to see a popup when going out of the screensaver from it ?

There has been some subtle changes regarding screensavers in 10.14.4, my guess is they started to clamp some things in preparation of the big clamp that is Catalina. It's quite possible that some new interaction came out of it when a screensaver tries to grab the keyboard (that's no longer allowed in Catalina right now, on top of everything else with the new sandbox we have to live in).

glouel on 27 Jul 2019

@glouel I just got an AntiRSI popup behind the screensaver, and this did not lead to the problem. As of now I haven't seen (or managed to reproduce) the issue with updates disabled.

BorBorBor on 30 Jul 2019

@BorBorBor this is intriguing. Still waiting on some more feedback but what I get so far from different people is:

nothing popups, with updates = OK
something popups, with updates = NOT OK
something popups, no updates = OK

So maybe there's a collision of focus loss with updates and a popup. In your case, I'd suggest you keep updates disabled, if that's ok, I may ask you to test something else in the future. I'm still waiting for what will happen on Catalina to get a better idea of where things are going. It's possible that the interception of key we do (right arrow to skip) plays an indirect role into this, and I may have to remove that code entirely which may ends up fixing this.

Bit of a headscratcher, thanks for the feedback and keep an eye on next beta or the one after that where I'll try something around this.

glouel on 30 Jul 2019

@glouel Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, it is mysterious. I'll let you know if I discover something new, please give me a sign if you need me to test anything.

BorBorBor on 30 Jul 2019

I think I have this issue with my own Swift screensaver (Life Saver) and it annoys the heck out of me. My screensaver has no control options. The way it presents for me is that I lose all ability to get the password prompt to come up.

I come back to my PC, and no keyboard presses or mouse clicks will get the password prompt to come up. I don't believe I can see the mouse either. What brings the password up on my MacBooks is if I hit the power button... this will bring the password prompt up immediately. Also, if my MacBook is in clam-shell mode with a bluetooth keyboard attached (no access to power button), I have to open my MacBook screen for a second, then the screensaver seems to restart itself and the password prompt will come up.

I'm probably not going to be much help, I have no idea why it happens, but it happens so frequently and regularly to me that I imagine it must be really annoying for other people, but no one has mentioned it, even close friends who I know use the screensaver. I've thought it was just me... but it's so annoying, and it happens on both of my computers. (It didn't used to happen when I was using ElectricSheep.)

amiantos on 21 Aug 2019

I think I have this issue with my own Swift screensaver (Life Saver) and it annoys the heck out of me. My screensaver has no control options. The way it presents for me is that I lose all ability to get the password prompt to come up.

I come back to my PC, and no keyboard presses or mouse clicks will get the password prompt to come up. I don't believe I can see the mouse either. What brings the password up on my MacBooks is if I hit the power button... this will bring the password prompt up immediately. Also, if my MacBook is in clam-shell mode with a bluetooth keyboard attached (no access to power button), I have to open my MacBook screen for a second, then the screensaver seems to restart itself and the password prompt will come up.

I'm probably not going to be much help, I have no idea why it happens, but it happens so frequently and regularly to me that I imagine it must be really annoying for other people, but no one has mentioned it, even close friends who I know use the screensaver. I've thought it was just me... but it's so annoying, and it happens on both of my computers. (It didn't used to happen when I was using ElectricSheep.)

Hey @amiantos

Thanks for chiming in ! Quick question, do you intercept keypresses with your screensaver ? It seems to me that those reports I do get started around the time I added the ability to press the arrow key to skip.

The exact conditions when the bug happen are a bit more complex, usually there's some focus conflict with a background app (like Little Snitch or AntiRSI here), and it seems the latest point updates of 10.14 made things worse by sometimes stealing focus themselves.

With Catalina, you can no longer intercept keypresses, so I may have to take down that bit of code in a further update anyway. But you might want to check that on your end and see if it helps (you need to comment out the code as you can't conditionally intercept keypresses, sadly) ?

glouel on 21 Aug 2019

As far as I know, Life Saver does not intercept keypresses, there's no interactivity in the screensaver at all. I also don't believe I have any third party apps that would steal focus... very peculiar! How does it feel to be the most knowledgable person about screensaver development?? Hehe :)

amiantos on 21 Aug 2019

Hey people,

The exact conditions when the bug happen are a bit more complex, usually there's some focus conflict with a background app (like Little Snitch or AntiRSI here), and it seems the latest point updates of 10.14 made things worse by sometimes stealing focus themselves.

I must say that after disabling the updater I haven't had the problem anymore, while I have been using the screensaver (+ AntiRSI) consistently. So I think the issue (at least the issue I was experiencing) was not caused by the focus conflict.

BorBorBor on 21 Aug 2019

Hey people,

The exact conditions when the bug happen are a bit more complex, usually there's some focus conflict with a background app (like Little Snitch or AntiRSI here), and it seems the latest point updates of 10.14 made things worse by sometimes stealing focus themselves.

I must say that after disabling the updater I haven't had the problem anymore, while I have been using the screensaver (+ AntiRSI) consistently. So I think the issue (at least the issue I was experiencing) was not caused by the focus conflict.

@BorBorBor

Interesting, glad to hear that disabling updates worked for you. My understanding in your case is that Sparkle which I use for auto updates may make Aerial lose focus on some systems but not all (when another app that may steal focus is involved). Glad to hear that fixed, hopefully I can find a better way to handle auto updates then.

As far as I know, Life Saver does not intercept keypresses, there's no interactivity in the screensaver at all. I also don't believe I have any third party apps that would steal focus... very peculiar!

I guess you don't use Sparkle either ? I'd suggest you look at this post here : https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/768#issuecomment-491163629 , there's a link to a gist with a script that tells you who has focus. Might be interesting for you to see what is happening when your screensaver loses focus.

How does it feel to be the most knowledgable person about screensaver development?? Hehe :)

Haha, I guess that's not a very marketable skill ;) The whole process should probably be less painful that it is now though, and I don't have high hopes for Catalina...

glouel on 21 Aug 2019

👀1

@amiantos by the way on the same thread, check this comment, there's a bug in Mojave with some settings of mission control that I had completely forgotten about : https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/768#issuecomment-491473659

That may be the difference in your setup compared to your friends ? Maybe you should try to see if Aerial exhibits the same bug in your setup too to double check.

glouel on 21 Aug 2019

I am experiencing the same issue. Moving the mouse, the cursor becomes visible, but I cannot get the password entry box to come up to unlock my iMac. Prior to posting the below debug log, I did disable the auto updates, so I will see if that fixes it. I just wanted to contribute to fixing this bug.

27" iMac (late 2013)
macOS Catalina 10.15 (19A602)
Aerial 1.6.1

> 9:19:46 AM : avInit1 (0.0, 0.0, 296.0, 184.0)
> 9:19:46 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> AerialView setup init (V1.6.1)
> 9:19:46 AM : Time Management initialized
> 9:19:46 AM : Display Detection initialized
> 9:19:46 AM : ***Display Detection***
> 9:19:46 AM : 1 display(s) detected
> 9:19:46 AM : 1cm = 42.91338647126605 points
> 9:19:46 AM : npass: dict [__C.NSDeviceDescriptionKey(_rawValue: NSDeviceResolution): NSSize: {72, 72}, __C.NSDeviceDescriptionKey(_rawValue: NSDeviceBitsPerSample): 8, __C.NSDeviceDescriptionKey(_rawValue: NSDeviceIsScreen): YES, __C.NSDeviceDescriptionKey(_rawValue: NSScreenNumber): 69992768, __C.NSDeviceDescriptionKey(_rawValue: NSDeviceSize): NSSize: {2560, 1440}, __C.NSDeviceDescriptionKey(_rawValue: NSDeviceColorSpaceName): NSCalibratedRGBColorSpace]
> 9:19:46 AM :        bottomLeftFrame (0.0, 0.0, 2560.0, 1440.0)
> 9:19:46 AM : src orig : (0.0, 0.0)
> 9:19:46 AM : left 0.0 below 0.0
> 9:19:46 AM : [id=69992768, width=2560, height=1440, bottomLeftFrame=(0.0, 0.0, 2560.0, 1440.0), topRightCorner=(2560.0, 1440.0), isMain=true, backingScaleFactor=1.0]
> 9:19:46 AM : (0.0, 0.0, 2560.0, 1440.0)
> 9:19:46 AM : ***Display Detection Done***
> 9:19:46 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> isPreview : true
> 9:19:46 AM : Using : nil
> 9:19:46 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> no local player
> 9:19:46 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> setupPlayerLayer
> 9:19:46 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> setting up player layer with bounds/frame: (0.0, 0.0, 296.0, 184.0) / (0.0, 0.0, 296.0, 184.0)
> 9:19:46 AM : Using dot workaround for video driver corruption
> 9:19:46 AM : Manifest init
> 9:19:46 AM : app support exists
> 9:19:46 AM : No customvideos.json at : file:///Users/ben/Library/Containers/com.apple.ScreenSaver.Engine.legacyScreenSaver/Data/Library/Application%20Support/Aerial/customvideos.json
> 9:19:46 AM : isManifestCached 10 true
> 9:19:46 AM : isManifestCached 11 true
> 9:19:46 AM : isManifestCached 12 true
> 9:19:46 AM : isManifestCached 13 true
> 9:19:46 AM : 2019-10-17
> 9:19:46 AM : Interval : Optional(-119986.54723405838)
> 9:19:46 AM : No need to check for new videos
> 9:19:46 AM : Manifests files were not loaded in class
> 9:19:46 AM : Files were not already loaded in memory
> 9:19:46 AM : Manifests are cached on disk, loading
> 9:19:46 AM : Poi Strings Provider initialized
> 9:19:46 AM : Defaulting to bundle
> 9:19:46 AM : path : /Library/Screen Savers/Aerial.saver/Contents/Resources/en.json
> 9:19:46 AM : Community JSON : 73 entries
> 9:19:46 AM : No local or user cache exists, using ~/Library/Application Support/Aerial
> 9:19:46 AM : cache to be used : Optional("/Users/ben/Library/Containers/com.apple.ScreenSaver.Engine.legacyScreenSaver/Data/Library/Application Support/Aerial")
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:46 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:47 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Could not determine duration, video is not cached in any format
> 9:19:48 AM : Total videos processed : 88 callbacks : 0
> 9:19:48 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> Setting player for all player layers in []
> 9:19:48 AM : initvideocache
> 9:19:48 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> streaming video (not fully available offline) : https://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_LA_A011_C003_DGRN_LNFIX_STAB_v57_SDR_PS_20181002_SDR_2K_AVC.mov
> 9:19:48 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> observing current item <Aerial.AerialPlayerItem: 0x60000052e1e0, asset = <AVURLAsset: 0x60000052e100, URL = streaming://sylvan.apple.com/Videos/comp_LA_A011_C003_DGRN_LNFIX_STAB_v57_SDR_PS_20181002_SDR_2K_AVC.mov>>
> 9:19:48 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> observeValue Optional("readyForDisplay")
> 9:19:48 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> backing change 1.0 isDisabled: false
> 9:19:48 AM : Processsing contentInformationRequest
> 9:19:48 AM : expected content length: 400154051 type:com.apple.quicktime-movie
> 9:19:48 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> startAnimation
> 9:19:48 AM : Processsing contentInformationRequest
> 9:19:48 AM : expected content length: 400154051 type:com.apple.quicktime-movie
> 9:19:49 AM : <AerialView: 0x7fc666401950> stopAnimation
> 9:19:49 AM : pwc init2
> 9:19:49 AM : Callback after manifest loading
> 9:19:49 AM : Looking for outdated files
> 9:19:49 AM : No old files found
> 9:19:50 AM : Aerial control panel V1.6.1
> 9:19:50 AM : Cache size : 1.79 GB
> 9:20:03 AM : cvcinit2
> 9:20:03 AM : cvcawake
> 9:20:03 AM : wdl
> 9:20:04 AM : connectionDidFinishLoading
> 9:20:06 AM : UI useHDR true
> 9:20:15 AM : UI popupVideoFormat: 1
> 9:20:39 AM : UI allowScreenSaverModeUpdatesChange: false

LogicWavelength on 18 Oct 2019

Boring update, I am still bugless after living without the updater. Thank you for the reminder to manually run updates now ;)

BorBorBor on 18 Oct 2019

I am experiencing the same issue. > * macOS Catalina 10.15 (19A602)

Aerial 1.6.1

@LogicWavelength let me know, it should fix. I've forced disabled auto updates in 1.6.2 (I see you're still in 1.6.1) for Catalina users, and won't reenable it until there's a fix.

@BorBorBor that's always good to hear, thanks 👍

glouel on 18 Oct 2019

I had just updated to 1.6.2 after posting! Guess I should have tried some of this first 👍

LogicWavelength on 18 Oct 2019

👍1

This has happened to me many times, twice in the last two days. I'm running the latest version (1.6.4) and have auto-updates disabled. Running 10.15.1, on a MacBook Pro with an external screen. Also have an Apple Watch used to unlock the screensaver when I return to it (not sure if that matters, but wanted to mention how I typically use it). When it occurs, there doesn't appear to be anything that I can do to quit Aerial from running. I can do a three finger expose swipe and see all the open windows, but when I click one or swipe again, the videos continue playing over the whole screen. The only option I've resorted to is to ssh from my phone to issue a restart command to reboot the computer so I don't have to hard shut it down. Really hope this gets fixed as I love this screen saver, but having to reboot unexpectedly is a pain.

lopezzi on 13 Nov 2019

This has happened to me many times, twice in the last two days. I'm running the latest version (1.6.4) and have auto-updates disabled. Running 10.15.1, on a MacBook Pro with an external screen. Also have an Apple Watch used to unlock the screensaver when I return to it (not sure if that matters, but wanted to mention how I typically use it). When it occurs, there doesn't appear to be anything that I can do to quit Aerial from running. I can do a three finger expose swipe and see all the open windows, but when I click one or swipe again, the videos continue playing over the whole screen. The only option I've resorted to is to ssh from my phone to issue a restart command to reboot the computer so I don't have to hard shut it down. Really hope this gets fixed as I love this screen saver, but having to reboot unexpectedly is a pain.

Hi @lopezzi

As far as I know, all the reported instances of this bug were fixed when I disabled auto updates for Catalina. So this is certainly puzzling and your occurence is the first I heard so far since. In any case, sorry about that.

From what I can gather from your message, this is not a 100% occurence, it may be even infrequent, am I getting this correctly ?

In broad terms, the issue surrounding auto updates is that the screensaver loses focus because another app steals the focus from it (in particular, Little Snitch and auto-updates, but with Catalina auto updates alone were enough). So there's a good chance that whatever is happening on your system is of the same vein.

If you could maybe think about other apps that are resident on your system (things like firewall, antivirus or stuff of that kind) that are running all the time and popping up windows, there's a good chance that it's something of the kind.

glouel on 13 Nov 2019

From what I can gather from your message, this is not a 100% occurence, it may be even infrequent, am I getting this correctly ?

That is correct, it is not 100% of the time. Most of the time, it works perfectly, but there are those few times that when it does occur, it's disheartening as I only know to reboot to get out of it. When the Aerial screensaver kicks in, is there a certain process that starts? I'm wondering because since I can ssh back to my machine, maybe I can just kill the process and get back to my machine without having to reboot. Any ideas?

I do have lots of other things running, but generally nothing that pops up windows during the day that I can think of. Some of the apps that are running in the background are dropbox, Code42, OneDrive, Google Drive, NoMAD, 1password. None of those ever really pop anything up, but maybe they are interfering?

lopezzi on 13 Nov 2019

From what I can gather from your message, this is not a 100% occurence, it may be even infrequent, am I getting this correctly ?

That is correct, it is not 100% of the time. Most of the time, it works perfectly, but there are those few times that when it does occur, it's disheartening as I only know to reboot to get out of it. When the Aerial screensaver kicks in, is there a certain process that starts? I'm wondering because since I can ssh back to my machine, maybe I can just kill the process and get back to my machine without having to reboot. Any ideas?

So this is a bit complicated in Catalina. But to keep it simple, a screensaver (any, not just Aerial) is a plugin to an app extension called legacyScreenSaver. It's not it's own process. The issue with auto updates was that Aerial started an extra process for the update, and because of permission that process failed. So I did remove that in Catalina.

So to answer your question, my understanding is that ScreenSaverEngine.app is the system process that is running the legacyScreenSaver.appex that in turn runs Aerial.saver, so maybe try and kill that process ? I have no idea if that works though, if it does please let me know.

I do have lots of other things running, but generally nothing that pops up windows during the day that I can think of. Some of the apps that are running in the background are dropbox, Code42, OneDrive, Google Drive, NoMAD, 1password. None of those ever really pop anything up, but maybe they are interfering?

That would be my guess yes. That's the only reason I know of of screensavers getting stuck (and it's probably not limited to Aerial but probably any 3rd party screensaver).

Because the issue is infrequent it's probably not super helpful, but there's a cool script here : https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/768#issuecomment-491163629

written by someone who had an unrelated issue that can detect who steals the focus. Keeping it in the background may be helpful if you can get back to it maybe ? I wish I could be of more help but that's about all I know around that kind of issues.

Edit : also as mentionned by someone else, please try cmd-opt-shift-esc instead of sshing.

glouel on 13 Nov 2019

I understand and thanks for the quick responses! When it happens again, I'll try killing the screensaverengine and see if that does anything. Also, thanks for the script, I'll try to get that running as well and see what we discover. Thanks again for your explanations and support!!

lopezzi on 13 Nov 2019

Ok, so it just happened to me again. I had the script running (also attached it), but apparently the ScreenSaverEngine.app didn't quit once the loginwindow.app process completed (I think). Even though the script shows "no active app" after the loginwindow process, the ScreenSaverEngine is still running. I was able to get back into my machine by killing the ScreenSaverEngine.app PID from my phone. I tried by name, but it said it couldn't find any processes which I thought was weird. Anyway, once I did a "kill 38648", I was back in business. Thankfully I could see the terminal window by using expose and even take a pic of it, lol.
Screen Shot 2019-11-14 at 4 40 32 PM

lopezzi on 14 Nov 2019

Hi @lopezzi and thanks for following up

So tiny bit of background of my understanding of this, as this may help to understand what you're seeing. As I mentioned before, in Catalina, 3rd party screensavers are a plugin to legacyScreenSaver.appex, itself an extension to ScreenSaverEngine.app. One pretty important thing about this is that the screensaver doesn't decide it's lifecycle. We get started AND stopped by the system, and, as far as I understand, that's ScreenSaverEngine.app that should have focus when it's running.

When you pressed a key to interrupt the screensaver, in the pre Catalina days, it would go to Aerial. Aerial could then bubble it up if it didn't need it (and it would go, I assumed, to ScreenSaverEngine.app). This was used for example for the right arrow key to skip a video. Now, that one no longer works because legacyScreenSaver.appex doesn't have the entitlement to have access to the keyboard, so as far as I know this code should not be a factor.

Now, if you don't ask for a password, this is pretty straightforward as far as I know, here's the output I get:

2019-11-15 13:54:22: [1397] /Applications/iTerm.app (iTerm2)
2019-11-15 13:54:24: [17752] /System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app (ScreenSaverEngine)
2019-11-15 13:54:31: [1397] /Applications/iTerm.app (iTerm2)

I started the screen saver, waited about 7 secs to press space, my understanding is that ScreenSaverEngine.app grab that input and quit itself, bringing me back to iTerm.app.

If you do ask for a password (with or without Apple Watch, I also use the watch unlock here) loginwindow.app comes in the mix, but later on. Here, I set the ask for password to 5 sec, waited about 8 sec to press a key :

2019-11-15 14:03:42: [1395] /Applications/Safari.app (Safari)
2019-11-15 14:04:06: [17787] /System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app (ScreenSaverEngine)
2019-11-15 14:04:14: [484] /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app (loginwindow)
2019-11-15 14:04:15: *** no active app ***

So for the whole 8 secs the screensaver was running, ScreenSaverEngine.app had focus here. When I pressed the key, loginwindow.app was moved to front (my logo was visible with the text mentioning watch unlock and the background a bit dimmed) and I think it had focus for an instant before relinquishing it (that focus would be of use to type the password). During that time, Aerial (through ScreenSaverEngine.app) is still running (you can see the video keeps playing in the background) ! It's only when loginwindow.app let's me in that Aerial gets killed (again, through the container app).

Notice that I also have the no active app, but this happens after the loginwindow.app was triggered (and so ScreenSaverEngine, for lack of better term, did it's job), and with a slight delay.

As far as I understand, the delay is the time needed for the watch unlock here. But loginwindow.app, unlike ScreenSaverEngine.app in the first case, does not give the focus back to the previously active app (here, Safari). And indeed after the unlock, Safari is not focused, nor anything else.

As far as I know, this is a pretty separate issue to yours, that is related to how loginwindow.app works in Catalina and is very much a bug, it should give proper focus back. But this is minor and not your issue.

Now when I look at your log, I'm a bit puzzled about what's happening exactly. Let me see if I get this correct :

You had mail in focus, launched screensaver.
2.5 mins later, you came back, pressed a key or something. At that point, loginwindow.app came to front and you saw your logo.
The watch actually "unlocked" (your wrist was tapped) about 2 secs later.
At that point we're at 16:39:04. Now twelve seconds later ScreenSaverEngine gets focus again... That one I don't get, did you relaunch screensaver immediately or am I reading it wrong ? Because I get that 30 secs later, the whole loginwindow dance seems to happen again, and again looks "ok".
Then you have one last ScreenSaverEngine.app that seem to be the last entry here at 16:40:23. So I'm wondering, is it this instance that was the blocking one, or was all of it one ?

Can you be a bit more precise of what you exactly see when you are stuck, do you or do you not see the loginwindow.app with the dim, your logo and the watch thing ? I'm wondering if the issue is loginwindow.app not killing ScreenSaverengine.app after you auth, or if this is something else ?

Sorry this is a bit long (and it took me a bit to respond) but I'm not sure I'm exactly getting what you are experiencing. You mentioned that you could run Exposé which suggest you were logged back in. Also last thing, did you try or not this shortcut (pressing cmd-opt-shift-esc) instead of sshing ? This is the force quit shortcut and should work (you can try it before launching screensaver just to be sure) if I understand where you are at that point.

Thanks !

glouel on 15 Nov 2019

Hey @glouel thanks for following up and for the detailed reply. Sorry I wasn't too specific on timing of those things in the terminal window. I will explain what I did, but you are correct. Here's the breakdown:

I had mail open, had to go grab something, so I put the mouse in the bottom left corner of my screen (I use hot corners to start the screensaver which also locks my Mac) and go do whatever it was for 2.5 min.
I come back, move/click the mouse around, or press a key (don't remember exactly), loginwindow.app comes to focus and I see my logo and the "Unlocking your Mac with Apple Watch" text
Watch makes the unlock sound and taps me, however Aerial is still playing the videos full screen and I can't get to anything
The second "ScreenSaverEngine" focus is because I again, put my mouse into the bottom left corner of my screen again (while the Aerial video is still playing, hoping maybe it would realize it and unlock it or something) and Aerial (or screensaverengine) plays a different video overtop the original video that's still playing.
Again, I move the mouse or click a key, the loginwindow pops up with my logo and text "Unlocking Mac with Apple Watch" and the _second_ Aerial video stops and returns to the first Aerial video that's still playing full screen.
If I remember, I think I clicked the mouse to see if I could get the ScreenSaverEngine.app focus again (which looks like I did) and then did a three-finger swipe down to see all my open windows including terminal which showed the screensaverengine.app still running and it's PID.

So the last ScreenSaverEngine.app was the blocking one, although when looking at the list, the PID doesn't change so it doesn't look like the Mac started a new process (?) I'm not positive how the mac works in that regard.

Yes I could run Exposé and I could see all my other apps still running and everything when I did the swipe gesture. I could even do the Command-Shift-4, space, click procedure to get the screenshot of the Terminal window, but I can't actually interact with any other apps or click on them when in Exposé as it just returns full screen to the Aerial video that's playing. So in short, yes I was logged back in, but just couldn't click on anything as the video was taking the whole screen.

I didn't try the key combo, but I did just test it on a separate app and it closed it, so when it happens again, I will for sure try it and see if the app closes. That will be much easier than ssh-ing back into my Mac from my phone :)

Hopefully that helps describe the process I did. If anything is unclear, please let me know. I may even be able to take a video of it next time it happens.

lopezzi on 15 Nov 2019

Hey @glouel thanks for following up and for the detailed reply. Sorry I wasn't too specific on timing of those things in the terminal window.

@lopezzi no worries, thanks a lot, this is super helpful. Reason I was confused is that this is fairly different than the original issue. This may be a good thing !

I will explain what I did, but you are correct. Here's the breakdown:

I had mail open, had to go grab something, so I put the mouse in the bottom left corner of my screen (I use hot corners to start the screensaver which also locks my Mac) and go do whatever it was for 2.5 min.

I come back, move/click the mouse around, or press a key (don't remember exactly), loginwindow.app comes to focus and I see my logo and the "Unlocking your Mac with Apple Watch" text

Watch makes the unlock sound and taps me, however Aerial is still playing the videos full screen and I can't get to anything

I have to say this is a bit wild, there's one thing I'd like to try although it's a very long shot, I'll come back to you with a version that fully removes the code that intercepts the right arrow key, just to be 100% sure it's not that.

The second "ScreenSaverEngine" focus is because I again, put my mouse into the bottom left corner of my screen again (while the Aerial video is still playing, hoping maybe it would realize it and unlock it or something) and Aerial (or screensaverengine) plays a different video overtop the original video that's still playing.

Now that's truly wild !

Again, I move the mouse or click a key, the loginwindow pops up with my logo and text "Unlocking Mac with Apple Watch" and the _second_ Aerial video stops and returns to the first Aerial video that's still playing full screen.

That makes sense.

If I remember, I think I clicked the mouse to see if I could get the ScreenSaverEngine.app focus again (which looks like I did) and then did a three-finger swipe down to see all my open windows including terminal which showed the screensaverengine.app still running and it's PID.

And so... with exposé you could see it as a "classic" running app, just like terminal ?

So the last ScreenSaverEngine.app was the blocking one, although when looking at the list, the PID doesn't change so it doesn't look like the Mac started a new process (?) I'm not positive how the mac works in that regard.

Yes !!! To give you an idea, if you have multiple screen, you have one ScreenSaverEngine.app that starts all the .savers in separate threads. From the point of view of the plugin, you can share some things this way. That's about as much as I know of the internal but if I had to guess, the lingering thread was being treated independently as the next batch and ignored in your next attempt to quit (that worked, for that group of threads).

Yes I could run Exposé and I could see all my other apps still running and everything when I did the swipe gesture. I could even do the Command-Shift-4, space, click procedure to get the screenshot of the Terminal window, but I can't actually interact with any other apps or click on them when in Exposé as it just returns full screen to the Aerial video that's playing. So in short, yes I was logged back in, but just couldn't click on anything as the video was taking the whole screen.

Ok this is super interesting thanks for confirming. To explain why ScreenSaver always came in front, this is a feature of macOS, the window (that is created/controlled by ScreenSaverEngine.app, again), has a special window level that puts it always in front : https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsscreensaverwindowlevel?language=objc

I didn't try the key combo, but I did just test it on a separate app and it closed it, so when it happens again, I will for sure try it and see if the app closes. That will be much easier than ssh-ing back into my Mac from my phone :)

I hope it will ! Each time I hear you sshing from your phone to your mac...

Hopefully that helps describe the process I did. If anything is unclear, please let me know. I may even be able to take a video of it next time it happens.

No that's great, thanks. I'll make a quick test build for you to see if it improves, if not though, we'll have to fill a radar to try and get it fixed I'm afraid as this is happening way above Aerial in the stack. Thanks !

glouel on 15 Nov 2019

I'm willing to give it a shot! Thanks for doing that.

To answer your question about the exposé thing, no the video or screensaver doesn't appear as a classic app like all the others. The video actually just fades into the background while all my running apps scale to their prospective windows. If I hold my three-finger swipe mid way through the gesture, you can actually watch the video still playing, but slowly fading away while the other apps slowly fade into view. Then if I slowly reverse the gesture, you can watch the video (still playing mind you) slowly fade back to the front while the apps all slowly fade into the background. It's pretty wild, I'll try to get a video of it next time.

lopezzi on 15 Nov 2019

I'm willing to give it a shot! Thanks for doing that.

No problem, please install this : https://github.com/glouel/Aerial/releases/download/1.6.4test1/Aerial.saver.zip

If the issue reoccur we'll see to fill a radar.

To answer your question about the exposé thing, no the video or screensaver doesn't appear as a classic app like all the others. The video actually just fades into the background while all my running apps scale to their prospective windows. If I hold my three-finger swipe mid way through the gesture, you can actually watch the video still playing, but slowly fading away while the other apps slowly fade into view. Then if I slowly reverse the gesture, you can watch the video (still playing mind you) slowly fade back to the front while the apps all slowly fade into the background. It's pretty wild, I'll try to get a video of it next time.

Ok I admit this was more about my curiosity on this one ! but it makes perfect sense. Exposé must have a specific (undocumented publicly) windowlevel that's above the screensaver I would assume !

glouel on 15 Nov 2019

Ok, I've got it installed. I'll let you know what happens. I typically don't use this computer over the weekend, so if it doesn't happen in the next couple hours, it will probably be Monday at the earliest I can test again. Just wanted to give a heads up.

lopezzi on 15 Nov 2019

👍1

So I thought maybe we were in the clear, but I just had it happen again. It's been working great, but it just did it again. Now, I have no idea if the way I am using my Mac at this moment made a difference or not, but here's the setup I had. I'm Airplaying my screen to an AppleTV, started the screensaver, came back and moved the mouse. The "loginwindow" appeared but told me you can't unlock the computer via Apple Watch when the screen is being shared (who knew?) so I used TouchID (on a MacBook Pro) and it unlocked but the screen saver still was playing. I used the magic key combo and it took me right out of it (so that part does work). Not sure if it was something related to Airplaying my screen or not, but wanted to report my findings. I'll report back with any additional findings should they arise.

lopezzi on 21 Nov 2019

So I thought maybe we were in the clear, but I just had it happen again. It's been working great, but it just did it again. Now, I have no idea if the way I am using my Mac at this moment made a difference or not, but here's the setup I had. I'm Airplaying my screen to an AppleTV, started the screensaver, came back and moved the mouse. The "loginwindow" appeared but told me you can't unlock the computer via Apple Watch when the screen is being shared (who knew?)

I definitely didn't !

so I used TouchID (on a MacBook Pro) and it unlocked but the screen saver still was playing. I used the magic key combo and it took me right out of it (so that part does work). Not sure if it was something related to Airplaying my screen or not, but wanted to report my findings. I'll report back with any additional findings should they arise.

Ok thanks ! Because that's such a specific use case, I'd love to know if you see it happening in more "classic" conditions although it would be quite the coincidence to get the same bug two separate ways. But I can't discount the fact that you didn't hit the issue this week so better be sure on this.

Thanks for following up !

glouel on 21 Nov 2019

So I was really hoping to not have to write this, but it just happened again. However, there was again, one small deviation from the norm that may or may not matter. So like normal, I had to leave my desk, put my Mac into screensaver mode. Came back and clicked/wiggles the mouse which brought up the normal loginwindow screen, however this time it said the signal from my watch was too weak to Auto Unlock (which is normal, seen it occasionally if I turn around or something while it's trying to unlock.) So I manually enter my password and bam. Computer unlocks, but screensaver is still running. Had to do the key combo to exit again. Having to type my password in manually is the only change from normal. I'm about to head out for the rest of the week, so probably won't get any time to continue testing the rest of the week, but will continue when I can. Just wanted to report my findings.

lopezzi on 26 Nov 2019

Ok, thanks for the followup. I think the password thing doesn't change much. At this point the best way forward is to fill a radar through Feedback Assistant on your mac so Apple can have a look. I can help you through it if you want. It's important that you are the one doing it as the tool collects some data about your machine to help them debug the issue. So let me know and I'll get you through it.

glouel on 27 Nov 2019

Please supply me with a recent, direct link, to “Aerial Screensaver” for a Mac running Catalina.
Thanks, Willie

On Nov 27, 2019, at 6:40 AM, Guillaume Louel notifications@github.com wrote:

Ok, thanks for the followup. I think the password thing doesn't change much. At this point the best way forward is to fill a radar through Feedback Assistant on your mac so Apple can have a look. I can help you through it if you want. It's important that you are the one doing it as the tool collects some data about your machine to help them debug the issue. So let me know and I'll get you through it.

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tvwillie on 27 Nov 2019

@tvwillie ? The link is on the front page, here you go... https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/releases/download/v1.6.4/Aerial.saver.zip

glouel on 27 Nov 2019

Thank you sir. Great job.

On Nov 27, 2019, at 2:52 PM, Guillaume Louel notifications@github.com wrote:

@tvwillie https://github.com/tvwillie ? The link is on the front page, here you go... https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/releases/download/v1.6.4/Aerial.saver.zip https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/releases/download/v1.6.4/Aerial.saver.zip
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tvwillie on 27 Nov 2019

Hi all, great plugin that I have been using for a long time but when I upgraded to 10.15 it broke so I upgraded and have had quite a few issues since. I have tried to read the posts above but there are now just so many... Can you confirm the best version/settings to use on 10.15.1 on a MacBook Pro (with Touch Bar) - I am using v1.6.4?

Basically I am having the same issue as some others have reported above where sometimes it just won't stop the screen saver, if I trigger a hot corner I can even trigger a second screen save over the top of the failed one or go to mission control etc. But I have to force quit the original lower one...

I also sometimes can force it to close by itself by removing one or more of my additional screens and closing the lid of the laptop and then re-opening it before reconnecting the screens.

jacklawry on 4 Dec 2019

Hi @jacklawry

1.6.4 is the best version for now, yes. Settings don't seem to have much impact as far as I know regarding the screensaver not quitting after you authenticated.

This looks to be a macOS bug as far as I understand (the screensaver never quits by itself, macOS starts and stops us at will on as many screens as needed), though I haven't been able to reproduce it here yet.

There may be a common factor on those who hit the bug (the one you specifically mention, the others upthreads are of a fixed, separate issue) but I haven't managed to find it yet (you're the second person to report that particular issue so far).

If you are able, I would highly suggest filing a radar through feedback assistant from your machine, as this may help to get the bug resolved. I can guide you through it if needed.

Edit: Completely forgot, but to easily quit, you can press cmd-opt-shift-esc, this will hopefully make it less of a hassle for you.

glouel on 4 Dec 2019

👍1

John, On another computer using OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 I find myself unable to find a workable version of your fine Aerial Screensaver. Could you please send me a direct link to a viable version for this OS X.
Thanking you in advance, I remain William Mason

On Dec 4, 2019, at 8:25 AM, Guillaume Louel notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi @jacklawry https://github.com/jacklawry
1.6.4 is the best version for now, yes. Settings don't seem to have much impact as far as I know regarding the screensaver not quitting after you authenticated.

This looks to be a macOS bug as far as I understand (the screensaver never quits by itself, macOS starts and stops us at will on as many screens as needed), though I haven't been able to reproduce it here yet.

There may be a common factor on those who hit the bug (the one you specifically mention, the others upthreads are of a fixed, separate issue) but I haven't managed to find it yet (you're the second person to report that particular issue so far).

If you are able, I would highly suggest filing a radar through feedback assistant from your machine, as this may help to get the bug resolved. I can guide you through it if needed.

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tvwillie on 5 Dec 2019

John, On another computer using OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 I find myself unable to find a workable version of your fine Aerial Screensaver. Could you please send me a direct link to a viable version for this OS X. Thanking you in advance, I remain William Mason
…

Hi,

Have you tried 1.6.4 ? https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/releases/download/v1.6.4/Aerial.saver.zip

This is the latest version which should work on everything from 10.9 to 10.15. If something specific doesn't work, please elaborate.

glouel on 5 Dec 2019

I feel for you and would imagine what a pain it is to support a FREE amazing solution like this (especially when it’s default And core on the Apple TV) so not sure why it’s not also default in macOS? But would love to help if you can send details on how to report it fully.

jacklawry on 5 Dec 2019

Thanks again……….All is working……………
Willie

On Dec 4, 2019, at 5:36 PM, Guillaume Louel notifications@github.com wrote:

John, On another computer using OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 I find myself unable to find a workable version of your fine Aerial Screensaver. Could you please send me a direct link to a viable version for this OS X. Thanking you in advance, I remain William Mason
… Hi,

Have you tried 1.6.4 ? https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/releases/download/v1.6.4/Aerial.saver.zip https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/releases/download/v1.6.4/Aerial.saver.zip
This is the latest version which should work on everything from 10.9 to 10.15. If something specific doesn't work, please elaborate.

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tvwillie on 5 Dec 2019

I feel for you and would imagine what a pain it is to support a FREE amazing solution like this (especially when it’s default And core on the Apple TV) so not sure why it’s not also default in macOS?

Let's just say Catalina makes doing all this a tad less enjoyable ;)

But would love to help if you can send details on how to report it fully.

Great !

So look for Feedback Assistant on your mac using spotlight, it has a purple icon. After logging in, press the new message option. Then it's fairly straightforward, pick macOS, in the next form pick something with ScreenSaver (I'm unsure of the exact english name for it since it's translated, I'd go with Screensaver Framework or Screensaver API).

Fill the description explaining that after authenticating, the screensaver keeps running in the background and isn't stopped. You can mention that you have to kill ScreenSaverEngine.app manually, and that if you don't you can actually launch another instance of ScreenSaverEngine.app. You can also put a link here : https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/828#issuecomment-554390567

After you fill the description it will collect anonymized data that will help them should they investigate. Thanks a lot for filling this, I can't guarantee it will get a response but it's worth a try !

glouel on 5 Dec 2019

I'm seeing the same issue as OP, but for an Apple screensaver (Flurry). Definitely a macOS bug – I've filed it with Feedback Assistant and it can be viewed here.

alecmocatta on 22 Mar 2020

👍1

I don't mean to thread-jack, but don't want to open a duplicate bug report. I have been experiencing this with version 1.8.2 on Catalina 10.5.4. So the bug still appears to exist. This is the only Screen Save I have ever had the problem with, and the only 3rd part screen save. Unlike @alecmocatta I do not have this issue with Drift nor Flurry, nor any other Apple screen saver.

btw, THANK YOU for this. I love these Aerials on my Apple TV had am so excited to hame them on my dual monitor setup. I love how I was able to calibrate monitor position to make the video transition smoothly between screens.

apwelsh on 14 May 2020

👍2

Did anyone fixed this? Is quite annoying

zaloogarcia on 2 Jul 2020

@zaloogarcia Ever since I changed my settings a year ago (almost to the day!) I have not had the problem.

https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/828#issuecomment-509135554

BorBorBor on 2 Jul 2020

Agreed. It just happened to me yesterday. A new version alert popped on my screen, and I was lock out of my system.

apwelsh on 2 Jul 2020

@apwelsh which version of macOS are you running ? You shouldn't get them anymore in Catalina with recent versions of Aerial.

In the meantime the usual suggestion is either to configure as is :

Capture d’écran 2020-07-02 à 18 09 19

Make sure it says Notify and not install. Alternatively if that still doesn't work for you, uncheck the two checkboxes.

glouel on 2 Jul 2020

I have been running solid with those auto check turned off, but yesterday it locked up on me.

I just updated to the 1.9.1 update and will see if they issue is resolved.

apwelsh on 2 Jul 2020

Actually, no matter how many time Install the update, it keeps reporting version 1.8.2. Maybe I need to remove it.

apwelsh on 2 Jul 2020

@apwelsh You need to quit System Preferences (fully close the window) and launch it again, this will load the new version.

Can you clarify what you meant exactly by "A new version alert popped on my screen", what did it look like and where was it exactly ?

glouel on 2 Jul 2020

It was text that overlays the screen saver. Check for updates us and was turned off but it reported to me in the screen saver with overlay text that there was a new version. Probably because of the second option being set still. I am upgraded now. Thanks.

apwelsh on 2 Jul 2020

@apwelsh interesting, so it's quite possible that just the update check triggers the bug then (it doesn't happen for everyone, it's a weird issue). Unchecking the box should make it 100% safe in any case. Thanks for following up on this.

glouel on 2 Jul 2020

great videos, but the feature where you lose your work because a screensaver takes over your computer is what sets this one apart. i wonder if making a screensaver so needlessly complicated contributed in any way? i think this screensaver is working towards becoming a dashboard app with all those overlays, so finally you have a way of getting the weather.

yarlingtuts on 26 Aug 2020

👎2

@yarlingtuts are you really looking for an answer to your question? I'm sorry you had a bad experience if you're really looking for troubleshooting let me know by starting to provide which macOS version you are running and which version of Aerial you used, and how exactly it "took over".

glouel on 26 Aug 2020

Hi @glouel I've come across the same problem on both Catalina and Big Sur Beta.

Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: macOS 10.15.4 (19E287)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 19.4.0

And Big Sur

Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: macOS 11.0 (20A5343j)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 20.0.0

On both versions of MacOS I've installed Aerial with Homebrew in a Brewfile, but for all intents and purposes, brew cask install aerial

$ brew cask info aerial
aerial: 2.0.2
https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial
/usr/local/Caskroom/aerial/1.9.2 (141B)
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/HEAD/Casks/aerial.rb
==> Name
Aerial Screensaver
==> Description
None
==> Artifacts
Aerial.saver (Screen Saver)
==> Analytics
install: 973 (30 days), 2,730 (90 days), 12,156 (365 days)

I have a script which sets up the screensaver for me as part of my OS config

defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime 300
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver CleanExit -bool true
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver \
  moduleDict -dict moduleName Aerial path \
    "${HOME}/Library/Screen Savers/Aerial.saver" type 0

# Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins
defaults write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -int 1
defaults write com.apple.screensaver askForPasswordDelay -int 0

Which seems to work fine, other than the fact that on both OSes for at least before the first† restart the screensaver would bounce a message around saying that the screensaver is not supported on this OS (Apologies, I don't have the exact message). After a restart it seems to work fine except for the screensaver would not allow me to exit once it started - I had to close the Macbook lid to return to a login prompt to get back to pre screensaver state. I was unable to exit the screensaver with the Macbook keyboard or trackpad, or any bluetooth mice/keyboards.

† I say at least before the first restart because I'm pretty sure that's the case but not 100% as I wasn't really paying attention specifically this issue at the time.

The suggestion above about disabling the update check does indeed stop this issue happening, but obviously there's no updates as a result.

benswinburne on 26 Aug 2020

Hi @benswinburne !

I have a script which sets up the screensaver for me as part of my OS config
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime 300
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver CleanExit -bool true
defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver \
  moduleDict -dict moduleName Aerial path \
    "${HOME}/Library/Screen Savers/Aerial.saver" type 0

# Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins
defaults write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -int 1
defaults write com.apple.screensaver askForPasswordDelay -int 0
Which seems to work fine, other than the fact that on both OSes for at least before the first† restart the screensaver would bounce a message around saying that the screensaver is not supported on this OS (Apologies, I don't have the exact message).

So, first about that. Simply closing and reopening System Preferences should do the trick, although I've had one report that on a fresh install, ScreenSaverEngine would throw an error until you rebooted once on 10.15.6.

It's more likely this one : There's a long standing macOS bug with Swift screensavers (which weren't officially supported for a while) with other System Preferences plugins that may be written in Swift and not using the same Swift Library. This also happens if you have another screen saver written in Swift and you switched from one to the other. More info here if you are curious: https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/blob/master/Documentation/Troubleshooting.md#very-common-issuesmacos-bugs

After a restart it seems to work fine except for the screensaver would not allow me to exit once it started - I had to close the Macbook lid to return to a login prompt to get back to pre screensaver state. I was unable to exit the screensaver with the Macbook keyboard or trackpad, or any bluetooth mice/keyboards.

† I say at least before the first restart because I'm pretty sure that's the case but not 100% as I wasn't really paying attention specifically this issue at the time.

The suggestion above about disabling the update check does indeed stop this issue happening, but obviously there's no updates as a result.

Hmm, I'm slightly confused now. Which version of Aerial are you using ? Does it look like this or not :

If it does, I actually removed the Sparkle updater in 2.0.0 and made a separate auto updater, precisely because it kept causing the can't exit thing for some systems. That's the update settings that I used to recommend people disable. It's no longer there.

Also, I'm not a big brew user, but in general what I used to recommend pre 2.0.0 is that you should periodically run brew cask upgrade aerial to get updates, and not use the Sparkle auto update thing.

So just to clarify, right now, there are no auto updates in 2.0.0+. If you don't want to use the brew upgrade thing, I've made a separate Aerial Companion that gives you auto updates, you can grab it here with more explanation : https://aerialscreensaver.github.io/installation.html this page also explains the homebrew stuff (please be aware, right now homebrew may not always have the latest version as things are broken a bit in Big Sur and I have a hard time manually pushing the updates there).

(the companion can auto install and run in the background, though I may need to adjust a couple of things and give you a defaults write to trigger a fully unattended experience, but I'd be more than happy to do that if you are interested).

So first can we clarify which version you are running and if you see the can't exit bug with 2.0.0+ or not ? I'm still unsure if disabling Sparkle was enough to get rid of the bug. It's possible that Aerial loses focus sometimes on a network connection. I did remove streaming from Aerial 2 too, but there are two potential network connections that can go through:

Automatic downloads of videos in the background (can be disabled in Settings > Cache)
Weather (not enabled by default)

I've spent this morning trying to track various issues surrounding those and I'm still unclear about exactly what is happening (I wish I could reproduce). Just to clarify, with Catalina, Aerial has 0 control of the keyboard/mouse, I can no longer intercept them because we're sandboxed, and in general when you press a key to exit, it's ScreenSaverEngine that gets the key press and kills Aerial.

So let me know which version you are running, I had hoped that I had definitely got rid of that one in 2.0.0 but who knows...

glouel on 26 Aug 2020

Hi @glouel

I'm on my Catalina machine at the moment.

I was on 1.9.1

I wasn't aware that 2.x had been released as I only installed Big Sur and ran the brew file the other day and that machine is on 1.9.1 too so must have been pretty recent; apologies I should have checked first!

I'm happy doing upgrades through brew as that's how I keep 99% of the rest of the software on my machine up to date.

I've just used Homebrew to update aerial 1.9.2 -> 2.0.4.

Now it looks like this

Notice the shadowing on the text- presumably not supposed to look like that? Also seems to be missing the top border of the window?

I'm just going to post this now and try the screensaver on v2. I don't want to lose this post were it to go wrong so I'll feed back in a minute.

--

Unrelated point - Having upgraded to 2.0.4 I noticed there's a wizard to configure the screensaver options on first load of the settings. Is this something I'll be able to set flags for using defaults as I would like to keep the whole process automated.

benswinburne on 26 Aug 2020

Notice the shadowing on the text- presumably not supposed to look like that? Also seems to be missing the top border of the window?

Shadows, if you pick a video in the middle column, you should see a video playing and the shadow is here to make the text readable. If the video isn't cached you'll get a screenshot of the video. But there's a tiny bug at first launch when you see exactly this, I need to fix that :)

Missing the border, that's because it's not a window it's a panel attached to the System Preferences window. It looks a bit foreign on Catalina but it will make a lot more sense in Big Sur. Try grabbing the bottom right corner and resize it, it will become more clear.

Unrelated point - Having upgraded to 2.0.4 I noticed there's a wizard to configure the screensaver options on first load of the settings. Is this something I'll be able to set flags for using defaults as I would like to keep the whole process automated.

Yep, the pref key is firstTimeSetup that needs to be set to true. The plist is in a container so it's a bit messy but I have something somewhere on how to set defaults for Aerial I'll look it up.

glouel on 26 Aug 2020

Right, current feedback is that I can't get it to lock up on 2.0.4 on Catalina which is good news.

However, on my machine with Big Sur I just reenabled update checking to prove it's broken and then upgrade to 2.x... bad news is that I now can't replicate it in 1.9.1 on Big Sur having disabled then reenabled it so I don't know if upgrading to 2.x was what fixed it or something else.

The main notable difference I see is that now the screensaver is telling me about 2.0.4 in the top corner which is something it wasn't doing before when it was definitely crashing. Is it perhaps that when it looks for an update and there isn't one it was failing perhaps?

Despite it working on Big Sur/1.9.1 it does seem to be intermittent. Sometimes wiggling the trackpad will return to login, sometimes it doesn't and I have to click, other times the trackpad does nothing and I have to press a keyboard key to get it to return to the login prompt. It hasn't got completely stuck though.

Missing the border, that's because it's not a window it's a panel attached to the System Preferences window. It looks a bit foreign on Catalina but it will make a lot more sense in Big Sur. Try grabbing the bottom right corner and resize it, it will become more clear.

I understand what you mean about resizing now. Probably doesn't matter as it's unlikely someone would want to do this but it's impossible to resize the Aerial prefs window to the same width as the parent window as changes to the width are made equally and the window isn't in the middle. Just in case it matters on Big Sur too.

Yep, the pref key is firstTimeSetup that needs to be set to true. The plist is in a container so it's a bit messy but I have something somewhere on how to set defaults for Aerial I'll look it up.

Great, thanks very much. Might be nice a list of available prefs in the readme/wiki somewhere if you already have a list, perhaps?

benswinburne on 26 Aug 2020

Right, current feedback is that I can't get it to lock up on 2.0.4 on Catalina which is good news.

Yay! Just to clarify, do you use weather or did you enable automatic downloads ? Trying to gather data points as I'm trying to narrow down a few issues.

However, on my machine with Big Sur I just reenabled update checking to prove it's broken and then upgrade to 2.x... bad news is that I now can't replicate it in 1.9.1 on Big Sur having disabled then reenabled it so I don't know if upgrading to 2.x was what fixed it or something else.

The main notable difference I see is that now the screensaver is telling me about 2.0.4 in the top corner which is something it wasn't doing before when it was definitely crashing. Is it perhaps that when it looks for an update and there isn't one it was failing perhaps?

You never had this ? Are you using Little Snitch by any chance ? Again to clarify, Aerial was no longer able to auto update on Catalina, so it would just warn you of new versions like this.

Despite it working on Big Sur/1.9.1 it does seem to be intermittent. Sometimes wiggling the trackpad will return to login, sometimes it doesn't and I have to click, other times the trackpad does nothing and I have to press a keyboard key to get it to return to the login prompt. It hasn't got completely stuck though.

Yes so those are Big Sur specific issues right now I can confirm. One I've noticed is that if you have a notification at the right screen corner, moving the trackpad will do nothing. But same thing, keyboard always got me out of it here. If you experience otherwise please let me know. And Cmd+alt+shift+esc should always get you out should you get stuck.

Missing the border, that's because it's not a window it's a panel attached to the System Preferences window. It looks a bit foreign on Catalina but it will make a lot more sense in Big Sur. Try grabbing the bottom right corner and resize it, it will become more clear.

I understand what you mean about resizing now. Probably doesn't matter as it's unlikely someone would want to do this but it's impossible to resize the Aerial prefs window to the same width as the parent window as changes to the width are made equally and the window isn't in the middle. Just in case it matters on Big Sur too.

That's intriguing, looks like it's offset right by 2px. That's probably a macOS thing as we just give the panel and it gets attached to System Preferences by the system. But yeah I've gone large with 2.0.0 by default. I also use large controls on Big Sur.

Yep, the pref key is firstTimeSetup that needs to be set to true. The plist is in a container so it's a bit messy but I have something somewhere on how to set defaults for Aerial I'll look it up.

Great, thanks very much. Might be nice a list of available prefs in the readme/wiki somewhere if you already have a list, perhaps?

So I haven't documented it but I can do that at some point. In the meantime check that issue for more info on how to access it in general: https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/976

I've also pinned an issue on top of the issues, regarding Big Sur. Right now the paths are a mess so your scripts will need to be adjusted.

glouel on 26 Aug 2020

Yay! Just to clarify, do you use weather or did you enable automatic downloads ? Trying to gather data points as I'm trying to narrow down a few issues.

Catalina - did not re enable automatic downloads before upgrading to 2.x. Have now enabled weather and still can't get it to lockup.
Big Sur - re enabled automatic downloads, have not upgraded to 2.x but it now no longer locks up. Enabled weather too now and still doesn't lock up.

You never had this ? Are you using Little Snitch by any chance ? Again to clarify, Aerial was no longer able to auto update on Catalina, so it would just warn you of new versions like this.

No idea what Little Snitch is so I'm going to say no (?). I get that Aerial was not actually able to perform the update on Catalina, but I'd also never seen the message about new available versions before.

So I haven't documented it but I can do that at some point. In the meantime check that issue for more info on how to access it in general: #976

Great, thanks.

I've also pinned an issue on top of the issues, regarding Big Sur. Right now the paths are a mess so your scripts will need to be adjusted.

I had a look at this- seems to be just to continue using old downloads etc, right? I was on a fresh machine so I didn't have any existing downloads. My script mentioned above installed 1.9.x (at the time) and worked fine but I'll keep an eye on it for 2.0 installs- thanks.

benswinburne on 28 Aug 2020

Catalina - did not re enable automatic downloads before upgrading to 2.x. Have now enabled weather and still can't get it to lockup.

Big Sur - re enabled automatic downloads, have not upgraded to 2.x but it now no longer locks up. Enabled weather too now and still doesn't lock up.

Ok please update me if you experience any locking issue but I think it's good, I haven't had reports about that yet in 2.0. Thanks !

No idea what Little Snitch is so I'm going to say no (?). I get that Aerial was not actually able to perform the update on Catalina, but I'd also never seen the message about new available versions before.

Sorry, Little Snitch is a 3rd party firewall (https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html). It's nice, but it doesn't play well with screensavers in general.

I had a look at this- seems to be just to continue using old downloads etc, right? I was on a fresh machine so I didn't have any existing downloads. My script mentioned above installed 1.9.x (at the time) and worked fine but I'll keep an eye on it for 2.0 installs- thanks.

Yes, just be aware that with the next Big Sur beta, your videos may go missing.

glouel on 28 Aug 2020

🎉1

I just had this issue with Catalina 10.15.7 and Aerial 2.2.6. I could use expose but every time I exited expose, Aerial would show. In the end I had to force quit. I noticed via expose one window that was open was a Problem Report/crash window for a different application (crash was unrelated to Aerial but perhaps the display of the problem report window interfered with the Aerial logic).

penx on 13 Jan 2021

@penx that's interesting ! Indeed I think the crash report window probably stole focus from ScreenSaverEngine and put you in that situation.

Post Catalina, screensavers have little control about stuff like focus and keyboard, it's all been neutered and I believe that for some reason ScreenSaverEngine (Aerial's "host" in this case) tends to not try and get back focus (or maybe didn't expect it could lose it).

You should consider opening a feedback on Feedback Assistant explaining what happened if you have a minute.

glouel on 13 Jan 2021

I gave up and remove the software. I have been locked out of my system far too many time when I needed access for work.

apwelsh on 14 Jan 2021

I gave up and remove the software. I have been locked out of my system far too many time when I needed access for work.

Sorry to hear that. cmd-opt-shift-esc will always get you out FYI when that issue arise.

I understand from reading up that you were running 1.9.X versions, I believe I fixed the occurrences that were linked directly to Aerial's auto-updater stealing focus by simply removing it in 2.0+ and adding a separate companion app to handle the auto updates, should you wish to give it another shot. If you experienced the issue in 2.x I'm interested to hear about it as I didn't get a report until yesterday of that happening again.

There still seems to be some occurrences when a 3rd party app steals focus but as much as I've tried to workaround that, this seems to be an issue in ScreenSaverEngine.

glouel on 14 Jan 2021

Actually, the key sequence wouldn't. The screen save hijacks the system, and I have to find the right combination of Task/Windows switching and force kill. The only way to always get out is to force logout. Still, I no longer use the screen saver. I loved it, but I can no longer afford to be locked out of my system because of something as simple as a screen that has been way over complicated.

apwelsh on 15 Jan 2021

I use a program called "Better Touch Tool” (BTT) and have a Touch Bar button setup called "Aerial Kill" that does a "Command + Option + Shift + Esc” I find that if it locks up this kills it and it lets me back in...

I use BTT as I can never remember the correct keys and I can't use my computer to look it up...

jacklawry on 15 Jan 2021

cmd-opt-shift-esc

Actually, the key sequence wouldn't.

@apwelsh I was trying cmd-opt-esc for a while before seeing this issue - which doesn't work because of what you describe. cmd-opt-shift-esc, however, did work. Did you try with the shift?

penx on 15 Jan 2021

Aerial: Can't exit screensaver without using force quit.

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