View source for Raspberry Pi 4 - Screen Blanking manually via command line 2023

This is how to disable screen blanking on Raspberry Pi in 2023. This would go in a crontab or can be manually run via the command line. I wanted my rpi screen to power off at night, then be on all day. Most guides seemed confusing, and raspi-config didn't seem to actually do screen blanking for some reason. This was my solution.

* Tested on Raspberry Pi 4 (Jan 18, 2023)

==Disable and Enable Screen Blanking on RPi 4==

'''Enable screen blanking on rpi4 so screen will automatically sleep after a while'''
 export DISPLAY=:0; xset +dpms; xset s blank; xset s off; xset dpms force on

'''Disable screen blanking on rpi 4 so screen is always on'''
 export DISPLAY=:0;xset s noblank; xset s off; xset -dpms

===Description of xset screen blanking commands on raspberry pi===
* xset s noblank
** Sets the screen to not blank
* xset s off
** Sets the screensaver off (if applicable)
* xset -dpms
** Turns off Display Power Management (dpms won't trigger the screen to sleep)
* xset +dpms
** This forces Display Power Management to kick in and sleep the monitor after a while
* xset dpms force on
** (not sure) I think this is +dpms but also forces the monitor to turn on.

===Auto start===
This command does not persist reboots. To run on every boot, create a script and add it to your startup items in your GUI. Or add to crontab -e on startup. Or make a systemd startup script. rc.local may even work if you're lazy.

==Disable RPi screen blanking in console==
'''This section is for an older Pi, I haven't tested on Pi 4'''

If your screen goes black during command line after 30 minutes or so, you have screen blanking enabled most likely. If you want to turn it off:

Edit the file '''/etc/kbd/config'''
Change these lines:
 BLANK_TIME=0
 BLANK_DPMS=off
 POWERDOWN_TIME=0


==Troubleshooting==
Allow 15 minutes with each setting to see if the screen goes/doesn't go blank in the way you want. There may be other things that blank your screen, like system settings in MATE or other DE's, so look there too.
* Disable screen blanking in raspi-config
* Disable screensaver app, and in settings uncheck DPMS
* Check system settings (MATE or Lubuntu power settings etc)
* export DISPLAY=:0 is only needed if you run it via crontab or SSH.

==External Links==
[https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-disable-screen-blanking/| Screen Blanking - this helped me a ton]

[https://www.geeks3d.com/hacklab/20160108/how-to-disable-the-blank-screen-on-raspberry-pi-raspbian/| Disable screen blanking - includes with auto-start]


[[Category:Raspberry Pi]]