Chrome DPMS Bug

I have been dealing with a very annoying bug for the past few weeks: my laptop display has not been turning off automatically! I configure my systems to blank and lock the screen after five minutes of inactivity and to turn off displays after ten minutes of inactivity. My displays have not been turning off, and I finally figured out that a Chrome bug is to blame.

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that the laptop display turns off without issue after a system upgrade. The Display Power Management Signaling (DPMS) settings are all correct. The issue only starts to happen after using the laptop for some time. As a temporary workaround, I have been using the following script to forcibly turn the display off. The script delays for ten seconds in order to give me time to move my mouse to a location on my desk where it will not get nudged and turn the display back on.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
sleep 10
xset dpms force off

After a system upgrade yesterday, I gradually started various software that I frequently use, checking that the display still turns off after each step. The display stopped turning off when I ran Chrome, and it starts turning off again when I exited Chrome. Note that I only use Chrome for a work project, since Reflex FRP development does not work with Firefox.

I found a discussion in the Arch forums, an Arch bug report, and the Chromium issue. Note that I experience the issue by just running Chrome. I did not even open any tabs or interact with Chrome in my experiment yesterday, and I never watch videos in Chrome.

I really hope that this bug is fixed soon!