Cinnamon screensaver fails to wake up

[ghost]

On my system with LinuxMint 18.1 Cinnamon, there are 2 users - the wife and I. When either one of us goes to Switch User, then works on other user for a time, and Switch User to return to the first user, that first user is stuck with the screensaver - the digital clock and picture. Ctrl+L at this point will bring up the lock screen/switch user dialog, but fails to unlock the screen to get back to the desktop.
I have found as a workaround that by dropping to CLI (eg CTRL ALT F2) and killing cinnamon-screensaver for the locked out user that their desktop is suddenly available again on their TTY (eg CTRL ALT F7). So cinnamon screensaver is failing to wake up correctly.
How can I diagnose this further?

[itzexor]

I would check the system log (/var/log/syslog or journalctl) and the session log (~/.xsession-errors) for any errors that occur. Other than that, I'm not sure where to look.

[lostinlight]

Might not be directly related, but I also had a problem with Cinnamon screensaver not waking up, until I tried to press Esc key.

Seems obvious, but not when you encounter it for the first time :)

[Vahan86]

@onyxnz, is this still an issue in Cinnamon 4.2?

[dxvictor]

Every time my computer goes off to the lock screen I can not enter my password. TextBox behaves like it is disabled. Cannot get focus into it and can't type anything. Eventually, after clicking on the "People" icon it will switch to another screen where the password entry TextBox is enabled and I can type my password and get back in. Kind of a PITA

[icarter09]

@dxvictor are you the only user on your computer? Just curious if the original issue has roots in there being multiple users.