I'm running Gentoo unstable and for years the screen (monitor) on my desktop system would log off after 10 minutes of inactivity and then eventually go into power saving mode - going dark. If I moved the mouse or hit a key it would prompt for a log-in.

Over the last year maybe or half a year I've started having problems with it not working that way anymore - the screen would just stay on and not log off. Sometimes it seemed a reboot would fix it temporarily, but now for the last month or so, that doesn't help. I've asked on the Gentoo forum and so far haven't gotten a reply in the last few days. (usually pretty quick to help with problems).

Poking around here I see someone with a laptop seeking similar help and the answer suggested it may be SDDM rather than KDE, not a KDE project. So perhaps that is the case in my situation.. but thought I would ask here just in case someone could help or confirm.
thanks, JD

Looked at my /home/jim/.kde4/ directory using a root terminal and there was a red flashing link: socket-jamd -> /var/run/user/1000/ksocket-jim , so I deleted that and everything is working now. So - solved. Not sure why that link got in there other than perhaps a power outage causing a crash or something. /jd