xfce power manager reports invalid battery life information

[Alexander A. J. Frankland]

the xfce4-power-manager is having some issues in determining how much battery life is left on my laptop. primarily, if i unplug my laptop from the adapter the following message appears:

"System is running on battery power. your battery is discharging. Estimated time left is 13 Hours 59 minutes."

however, i know that my battery only last for about 2:10. after idling the computer for about 5 minutes, it now states:

"System is running on battery power. your battery is discharging. Estimated time left is 1 Hours 29 minutes."

and will then fluctuate between ~15 minutes+ more and ~15 minutes less, until the systems is at 10% charge, then it drops to 30 mins.

Running Ubuntu 13.04

xfce4-power-manager:
  Installed: 1.2.0-1ubuntu2
  Candidate: 1.2.0-1ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 1.2.0-1ubuntu2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: xfce4-power-manager 1.2.0-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-29.42-generic 3.8.13.5
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Aug 25 11:12:30 2013
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/xfce4-power-manager
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-12-13 (255 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xfce4-power-manager
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to raring on 2013-08-07 (18 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Sergio Benjamim (sergio-br2)]

In my laptop:

"Adaptor is online. Your battery is discharging (100%). Estimated time left is 19 hours 21 minutes."

The AC adaptor is plugged. I'm using Xubuntu 13.10.

---

Sometimes:

"Adaptor is online. Your battery is discharging (96%)"

And the battery never goes to 100%. It is annoying. In Power Information:

- Energy full design: 45,0 Wh
- Energy full: 42,1 Wh
- Energy empty: 0,0 Wh

My laptop is new, only 1 month (Asus R751JB, battery model X550E30), and I always use it with AC adaptor. I think these energy information are very wrong.

[Sergio Benjamim (sergio-br2)]

I noticed that in these news laptops it seems that if the battery is charged with more than 95% , then the laptop hardware will not charge battery to 100% , even if it is plugged in AC adapter.

If battery is less than 95% and you plug it, then it will charge up to 100% (and will appear a report like "Your battery is charging (94%). 15 minutes until is fully charged")

The problem is:

If battery is charged bettween 95% and 100%, it will report an wrong information, something like "Estimated time left is 2 hours 20 minutes", even if it is plugged. And if you unplug and plug it, it will report "Estimated time left is 90 hours and 36 minutes" or other insane value.

So, I can reproduce this in trusty from 2013/12/17.

But it seems there is more than one variation of this problem. The original:

1. Discharge the battery to a value less than 95%
2. Charge your laptop battery up to 100%
3. But on the way to get 100%, for example in 97%, unplug AC adaptor, it will appear a message like "Estimated time left is 8 hours and 52 minutes." (in xubuntu, i get this mensage only in a pop-up, but in battery panel icon it's normal, about 2 hours).
PS: it's like what Alexander A. J. Frankland reported here.

The other variation:

1. After charged it to 100%, then you will see "18 hours 52 minutes" in estimeted time left (insane value both to pop-up info and battery icon)
2. unplug AC adaptor, it will appear a message like "Estimated time left is 2 hours and 35 minutes", well, it's normal (but there is no pop-up info that battery is uncharging, this info is from battery panel icon)
3. plug again, and you will see somethin like "Adaptor is online. Your battery is discharging (100%). Estimated time left is 18 hours 52 minutes" (and again, there is no pop-up info) (this info remains a long time, it's not like Frankland reported)

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Affects a non-essential hardware component (removable network card, camera, web-cam, music player, sound card, power management feature, printer...).

[Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)]

xfce4-power-manager queries upower for battery related information.

Does "upower -d" report the same or similar values?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xfce4-power-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]