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If I open a terminal and run the below script, it works fine. The values from the gdbus call get written to the lockScreenTest.txt file. The values are true when the screen is locked and the values are false when the screen is unlocked. 

#!/bin/bash
while true; do 
    echo "$(gdbus call -e -d com.canonical.Unity -o /com/canonical/Unity/Session -m com.canonical.Unity.Session.IsLocked)" >> lockScreenTest.txt
    sleep 2
    echo "called" >> lockScreenTest.txt
done

But if I add this line ./lockScreenCheck.sh& to ~/.profile and restart the computer, the output of gdbus doesn't get written to lockScreenTest.txt. Instead, only the following output is written: 

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

called

Why isn't the output of gdbus available when the script is run from ~/.profile?
I'm investigating this because I wrote a Java program which needs to check if the screen is locked, and I'm doing it with roughly the following commands: 

String command = "gdbus call -e -d com.canonical.Unity -o /com/canonical/Unity/Session -m com.canonical.Unity.Session.IsLocked";
p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command);
p.waitFor();

Like the bash script, the Java program also works fine if I run it from a terminal with java -jar program.jar, but if I invoke it from ~/.profile, the Java program runs, but the output from the gdbus command is elusive.

Nav
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1 Answers1

1

It's probably failing because gdbus cannot establish a connection to a running session bus.

Remember that ~/.profile is sourced by login shells; it may be the case that the display manager invokes a user's desktop session inside a login shell, but you shouldn't count on it and even if it does, the session will be a child of the shell rather than the other way around - environment variables such as DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS won't be set in the parent shell.

For applications that need to connect to a desktop session's bus, you are better off using the GUI's "Startup Applications" feature - see for example How do I start applications automatically on login?

steeldriver
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