Can't activate password-protected screen saver

I use my MacBook for sensitive data, so I always make sure to "lock" my screen with a password-protected screen saver when I walk away from my desk. Normally, there are several ways to do this:
1. Wait for the screen saver to come on due to inactivity.
2. Set a "hot corner" for the screen saver and move the mouse to that corner.
3. Enable the keychain menu bar icon and choose "Lock Screen" from the menu bar. (This is my preferred method.)
Under normal conditions, any of these three methods will activate the screen saver.
However, sometimes when I've been running my computer for a while (several days) without rebooting, all three of these methods simultaneously *stop working*. The "lock screen" menu option does nothing, the screen saver hot corner does nothing, and the computer fails to activate the screen saver on its own after the predefined period of inactivity.
Oddly, I can still activate the screen saver by using the "Test" button in the screen saver preferences pane, but in that case it's not password protected, so that doesn't help.
A reboot solves the problem, but this usually happens when I have a bunch of stuff open and it's not a convenient time to reboot. Plus, after a reboot, the problem still recurs a few days later.
I'm not the only one with this problem. Many others have reported the same behavior:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6124716
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1391053
A few of those users found workarounds, but they seemed to be experiencing something different from what I'm describing here. Those who were describing the same symptoms I am still don't seem to have found a solution.
Incidentally, I am not running Spaces or Parallels, nor am I using an external monitor, all of which have been suspected in other threads as the culprit. Quitting all open apps doesn't seem to help either.
The issue seems to be limited to one account at a time; if I switch into another account while having this problem, the other account won't have problems starting its screen saver, but switching back doesn't resolve the issue for the first account. A reboot does.
Can anyone shed some light on this or offer another workaround? Or is this just an ongoing bug?

This happened to me again the other day. Any suggestions?

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How can I activate "keychain protect screen" via hotkey

(Translations maybe wrong, I only have the german language here...)
If I go into keychain>settings>show in menu bar there is a little lock in the menu bar.
First option is "protect screen" which is what I need really often in my day.
So how to activate that option via hotkey?
I tried several times but I could not manage to do that.
Active corners with the screen saver dos not work because it feels to slow... I want to press a button and be done...
Going into standby takes to long to reactivate... so the described option seems the right one.
Thanks for any help.
Helaron

I haven't found a way to make shortcuts for the Status menu area.
A workaround would be to use the Move Focus to Status Menus in the Keyboard and Text Input section of Keyboard shortcuts to activate the Status menu, then arrow down to Lock Screen. If the Keychain menu item is the first one in the menu, it will be active on pressing the hotkey for activating the Status menu.
There is a way to throw you back to the Login screen (basically like fast user switching). You can set up that command in an automator Service that you can set a hotkey for.
Set this command as the command in a Run Shell Script action in a new Automator Service. Set the Service to receive No Input in any Application. Save the Service and then create a keyboard shortcut using the Name of your Service. I've often had to activate the service once from the Services submenu before the keyboard shortcut works:
/System/Library/CoreServices/"Menu Extras"/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend
Make sure you drag across and select the whole command to copy and paste as the little window it creates on this page cuts it off. It's all in the field, but you have to drag across to copy it all.
You might try the steps in this article, but I couldn't make it work: http://www.macworld.com/article/1049080/lockscreen.html
A commenter there also pointed out the Fast User Switch trick.

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Major problem I'm having...!
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The option to switch to the loginwindow only appears if the "Fast User Switching" GUI is enabled in the "Accounts" pref pane. If that option were to be disabled and eg. a user on a shared computer went home without logging out, in the absence of "admin" access, that computer would be entirely unusable to other users short of pulling the plug, which might interrupt any background operations in progress.
I suppose the behaviour could be alterred depending on the "FUS" status, but really, what would be the point since, as you acknowledge, an "admin" user ultimately has the ability to access an open session anyway?
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Message was edited by: binkysdad

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Can't activate password-protected screen saver

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