Fn keys such as brightness and volume stopped working after update

[Redsandro]

-UPDATE- September 4 - Recent updates reintroduced functional Fn-Keys, but the Brightness Fn-keys are behaving poorly, compared to before when they behaved perfectly.

See comment #13

Original report:
--------------------------------

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 15, happily running Ubuntu 12.04 + Cinnamon.

Today after updating, certain Fn Function Keys didn't work anymore, like brightness, volume and mute.
Other Fn keys like Play Pause Next, they still work.

Tried rebooting some more. Google and Launchpad search. Appears this happened often during the years with older laptops and patches were released, but now it's back.

Unfortunately, I don't know which package or which update exactly, because I don't update daily. I think the update must have been a week old at max.

In short: pressing Fn + F# used to toggle or adjust something and a popup would appear, indicating the change.
Now, nothing is indicated and nothing is changed either.

I hope someone knows where to look.

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

# lspci -vnn | grep -A10 VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:215a]
 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 42
 Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
 Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 I/O ports at 1800 [size=8]
 Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
 Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
 Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
 Capabilities: [a4] PCI Advanced Features
 Kernel driver in use: i915

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

For reference purposes, here's how to set that brightness in case of emergencies without the Fn keys:

Set the value of:
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
to a value between 1 and max, where max is:
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/max_brightness

Note that you can't just sudo echo it in there. (???) You'll need to pipe-feed it, e.g.:
echo 15 | sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

The "Brightness and Lock" dialog also still works fine. (I didn't even know that dialog existed)
You can find it in "System Settings".

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1028518/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

gnome-settings-daemon, gnome-control-center? Not sure.

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

I wish I could change gnome-settings-daemon back into ubuntu for package, because peer pressure from the Bug Bot made me choose something that I am not sure about.

The truth is, when you see something not happening, it's hard to know what causes it.

[rCX (rcx)]

This has happened to me several times but it might not be a problem with Ubuntu. I have a Thinkpad Edge 14 and I dual boot both Ubuntu and Windows 7. Whenever this happens the Fn keys stop working in both Windows and Ubuntu which indicates that it's a BIOS/hardware issue. I usually fix it by simply flashing the BIOS.

Apparently it's a common problem with Edges:
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-Edge/Hotkeys-no-longer-working-ThinkPad-Edge-14-Windows-7/td-p/323077

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

@rCX: I cannot test your hypothesis, because I do not have Windows installed at the moment. However, two notes:

1) This is a brand new Edge from september 2011 (Intel), which is different from the ones made pre-2011 (AMD) which are mentioned in topics with similar problems.

2) Hotkeys have always worked, until one day they did not. How can this be BIOS/hardware related?

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

Also, I try to troubleshoot according to this guide:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting

to narrow the problem down, but everytime I kill gnome-settings-daemon it just restarts itself.

[rCX (rcx)]

I also have an Intel machine, in my case the hotkeys would suddenly stop working. Did you testing the keys on LiveCD/LiveUSB as it says in the guide you posted? If they work then you can be sure it's not a hardware problem.

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

I don't know by which update, but the bug is partially fixed.

SOUND

The sound hotkeys work normally again.

BRIGHTNESS

Buggy. The hotkeys work again, but there are now 7 steps, and the indicator goes (from min to max) like this: min, middle, max, min, middle, max.

When it worked fine (before this bug) I had like 10 (?) steps. Now I have 7 steps, but the indicator popup has only 3 steps.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

The Precise Pangolin has reached end of life, so this bug will not be fixed for that release