Tried stopping and killing all and everything, and then purging timenow and proximityd and installing them without any effect.
After that tried to install shortcutd, but no help. Then the same killing and purgin and reinstalling and now I cant get it to even work with the stop-killall-start-routine. I'm pretty sure it's my system and not timenow that has the problem, but cant get what it is. Btw, when I try to stop proximityd it says job not changed. Is this ok?

I also saw in the previous ps aux listing that I had 2 standalone.sh lines, is that ok?

Edit: got it working with the routine, remenbered that I had to start the proximityd.

Just wanted to note that I don't have to do any start/stop magic to get timenow running on my devices. It just works after a reboot.

I'm debugging this right now and I think the problem is that timenow starts before proximityd. So I modified the upstart job to look like this.

Kossuth, please edit your /etc/event.d/timenow.conf to look like above and test again. If it fixes the problem I will include the modified startup job in the package, and push an update.

The fact that it happens to some people and not other is probably due to the different startup services of each setup.

If this can help anyone, I can start timenow before proximityd and everything is fine.
On the other hand, proximityd was not started on boot despite the /etc/event.d/proximityd file. After some tests, I discovered that the proximityd start script did not grab the right dbus-daemon pid in order to launch proximityd correctly. I added the following line after the "respawn" line and proximityd is now started correctly on boot:

Editing the proximityd as pierrem suggested made it work for me. Yiehaa....
Tested only once. I'll report back after some charging and more reboots. Megathanks to everyone.

Edit: sorry, forgot to mention that ofcourse I tried first editing the timenow.conf, but that didnt help. Now I'm using original timenow from the repo and edited proximityd.

Ok, couple of reboots later the Timenow is still working and I find it very usefull. I usually check the clock from my phone while working (I'm not usually front of computer during work) and some time have dirty hands, so it's a major improvement over the usual routine that I have to use the button or the slider to see the clock. This, I think, was the biggest downside when I replaced my old Nokia Dumbphone with N900 last year, but now it is fixed. Thanks.

I would think that anybody who uses lockscreen to check the clock or missed calls would benefit from this software enormously, and I think there are many people who do. I'd even recommend this to be added to the next CSSU if it could be toggled on/off easily from some UI (Yeah, I'm newbie here in Maemo community, so I can suggest stupid ideas...).

I was wondering... Would it make sense to add the reverse operation to timenow, too? I.e. locking the screen after the proximity sensor has been covered for some time, e.g. 10 or 30 seconds? Optionally security-locking the device, too.
What do you guys think? Would that be doable?

Seeing things only from user side, isn't that what the proximity sensor is there to do in first place, to lock the screen when the phone is by your ear and you are talking to it :-). Can't code, so I cant comment to that part. I would use the reverse operation or at least test it, so I wouldn't have to lock the phone with slider when putting it back to my pocket in a hurry ...

Come to think of it, I think I wouldn't use the slider at all if the locking was reliable enough. Maybe it should lock the screen temporarily (if you uncover in this state, the screen opens back) almost instantly (say 1-2 sec) and make it permanent after 10 to 30 secs. So if you accidentally cover the sensor it wont affect the usage much, but it would lock the phone quick enough to avoid unintended operations. I Don't know if the system is responsive enough to accomplish this.

Hi qwazix, when I test by changing the interval=5000 -> the screen still shown up after around 1-2s. Is this normal?
/Truc

Interval means how often to check if the proximity sensor is covered. With 5000 you will just have to uncover the phone and wait between 0 and 5 seconds until timenow realizes there has been a change.

If you want to change the time the lock screen stays on after taking out of pocket you have to modify the timeout setting. The number is in milliseconds so setting in to 5000 means that light will stay on for about 5 seconds (up to 7).

This setting can't get lower than the default powerbutton press timeout, i.e. 1-2 seconds. (Nothing bad will happen, it just won't have any effect below a certain value)