Set Screen Saver to Turn on After x minutes (defaults command not working)

[jkuo]

Hi there,

I'm trying the following command to set the screen saver to turn on after 15 minutes:

sudo defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime -900

Which yielded the proper result:

:~ jkuo$ defaults -currentHost read com.apple.screensaver
{
    CleanExit = YES;
    PrefsVersion = 100;
    idleTime = 900;
    moduleDict =     {
        moduleName = Arabesque;
        path = "/System/Library/Screen Savers/Arabesque.qtz";
        type = 1;
    };
}

It worked right the first time, but then after I changed the setting in system preferences and tried to change it again, it seems like the defaults command doesn't do anything anymore.

:Scripts jkuo$ sudo defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime -1000
:Scripts jkuo$ defaults -currentHost read com.apple.screensaver idleTime
120

Any ideas what might be happening here?

Thanks!

[stevevalle]

@jkuo][/url - Managed Preferences may be an alternate method. It's what I have used in the past.

[nkalister]

run the command as the user:

sudo su -l "$LoggedInUser" -c "defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime 1800"

[jkuo]

@nkalister][/url - bingo, that did the trick!

Now the next mystery - even though I set it to, say, 30 seconds, the screen saver still isn't turning on after that amount of time. Is there another place I'm missing where I need to change a setting?

Also, even though the defaults read shows 30, in the System Preferences Panel is still shows the last set amount:

jkuo$ defaults -currentHost read com.apple.screensaver idleTime
30

But in System Preferences-->Screen Saver, it says "10 minutes"

Any ideas on what I'm missing here?

Thanks!

[nkalister · Accepted solution]

well, I've been so annoyed by the unreliability of the screensaver settings that I actually set it at the computer level using MCX as well as for the user with defaults:

# Computer MCX
sleep .5
dscl . -mcxset /Computers/localhost com.apple.screensaver idleTime always -int 1800
dscl . -mcxset /Computers/localhost com.apple.screensaver askForPassword always -int 1
dscl . -mcxset /Computers/localhost com.apple.screensaver askForPasswordDelay always -int 0         
# Computer Defaults Writes
sleep .5
sudo su -l "$LoggedInUser" -c "defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -int 1"
sudo su -l "$LoggedInUser" -c "defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPasswordDelay -int 0"
sudo su -l "$LoggedInUser" -c "defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver idleTime 1800"

see if that makes everything look correct . . . also, I believe you need to at least quit and relaunch SysPrefs before it'll show the new value.

[golbiga]

Have you thought about using a profile instead? Something along the lines of this should work for you, just adjust the idleTime to 900. https://github.com/golbiga/Profiles/blob/master/screensaver.mobileconfig

Allen

[adhuston]

Sounds like preference caching to me. I had a similar problem with setting icons on the Dock and the Ask For Screen Saver Password when waking a computer from Screen Saver or Sleep. I found that killing the cfprefsd process sometimes fixes it. Other times it takes a reboot. Try adding killall cfprefsd at the end of the script after you run the defaults command.

http://hints.macworld.com/comment.php?mode=view&cid=132659

[nkalister]

defaults commands are cfprefsd safe, according to apple, but YMMV. in my experience with cfprefsd, defaults commands work fine but plistbuddy or replacing the entire plist file will trigger a replacement from cache by cfprefsd.