M
MikeLNH
I have randomly been having a problem with Windows locking my screen, as if due to inactivity, while I'm in the middle of using the computer for various tasks. I might be browsing the web, editing photos, or typing in Word, when all of the sudden, the screen blanks out and goes to the lock screen, where I have to type in my password before getting back to my work. I have tried searching online for possible causes of this problem, but have been unable to find a solution.
This system is a laptop, so I do want it to go to sleep after a period of inactivity, especially when running on battery. My timeouts for settings like that are all 5-30 minutes, so it's not that I've set the time too short and allowed the system to think it was idle. I can be actively typing the middle of a word, and it will still flash back to the lock screen in between characters of a word, so this is not some bad setting in the power management configuration I also went into the advanced power management properties, and disabled USB selective suspend, just in case, even though I have no devices plugged into my laptop when the problem occurs. I've also looked in the Event Viewer, but can't find any obvious reason for the lock screen taking over suddenly. I am running MS Defender and it has found no viruses or threats; Malwarebytes also has not detected any malicious software.
NB: I am a software engineer, so I'm happy poking around in the guts of my machine in order to fix this problem. I'm not a Windows administration expert, however, so I'm not sure how to interpret the flurry of Security-Auditing events that show up in the Event Viewer when the problem occurs. It looks like the first event to hit the log is an Advapi logon event, type 5, from the "Services and Controller app" PID. Then I see a bunch of Logon and Special Logon events, followed by a couple Logoff events from my username. While this seems backwards, perhaps the events are arriving slightly out of order or something.
I would really appreciate help figuring out this highly annoying problem! It seems to come and go without any apparent rationale. Rebooting sometimes alleviates the problem for a day or two, but then it comes back. Other times, I'll use my machine for weeks without the problem happening even once. Thanks for any helpful ideas!
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This system is a laptop, so I do want it to go to sleep after a period of inactivity, especially when running on battery. My timeouts for settings like that are all 5-30 minutes, so it's not that I've set the time too short and allowed the system to think it was idle. I can be actively typing the middle of a word, and it will still flash back to the lock screen in between characters of a word, so this is not some bad setting in the power management configuration I also went into the advanced power management properties, and disabled USB selective suspend, just in case, even though I have no devices plugged into my laptop when the problem occurs. I've also looked in the Event Viewer, but can't find any obvious reason for the lock screen taking over suddenly. I am running MS Defender and it has found no viruses or threats; Malwarebytes also has not detected any malicious software.
NB: I am a software engineer, so I'm happy poking around in the guts of my machine in order to fix this problem. I'm not a Windows administration expert, however, so I'm not sure how to interpret the flurry of Security-Auditing events that show up in the Event Viewer when the problem occurs. It looks like the first event to hit the log is an Advapi logon event, type 5, from the "Services and Controller app" PID. Then I see a bunch of Logon and Special Logon events, followed by a couple Logoff events from my username. While this seems backwards, perhaps the events are arriving slightly out of order or something.
I would really appreciate help figuring out this highly annoying problem! It seems to come and go without any apparent rationale. Rebooting sometimes alleviates the problem for a day or two, but then it comes back. Other times, I'll use my machine for weeks without the problem happening even once. Thanks for any helpful ideas!
Continue reading...