Debian client randomly starts by itself

[sylvainhalle]

I use the latest Debian version (5.7.6) of the Zoom client on Ubuntu 20.04. At seemingly random times (but about once or twice every day), the Zoom application starts by itself without any intervention on my part. This happens while the application was previously shut down (i.e. not just minimized). This has been happening ever since I used Zoom on Linux, in all versions of the client, three different computers and at least two versions of Ubuntu (18.04 and 20.04).

I tried searching whether some cron job or something else would cause Zoom to start, but did not find anything. The last time Zoom started by itself, I used htop to see what its parent process was (see attached screenshot), but did not get very far (parent process is /sbin/init).

My two questions are:

1. Could you explain what is starting Zoom?
2. Could you tell me how to stop it from doing this?

Best,

Sylvain

[colegs]

@sylvainhalle 

Sorry for the delay in responding.  Is this problem still occurring?

[Veganman]

Hi Colegs -

I am having this same issue.  I found this thread after doing a search on the issue.  I, too, am using Debian.

[RRZ]

I was having this same problem. It was creepy, because Zoom would just start at random times when I wasn't at my computer. And I couldn't find any autostart entries, or cronjobs, or startup services that might be responsible, which was bizarre.
Here's what it was: Like the others who posted here, I was using Linux (Debian). Debian, by default when installed, has a screensaver called called xscreensaver. Xscreensavery has many screensaver patterns to choose from. One of those patterns is called "zoom". For some reason, when you have that pattern selected, when xscreensaver launches after a period of computer inactivity, Zoom (meeting) also launches. The simple solution is to disable that screensaver selection. On my setup, I went to my system's "Preferences -> Screensaver" and simply unchecked "zoom".

Sidenote: While troubleshooting this issue, I found that Zoom (meeting) uses 5% of my system's CPU while it's "closed" in the system tray (e.g. in a state that I thought was not running). So now when I close Zoom, I close it completely.