IBM Thinkpad A21p - Volume, Brightness, and ThinkPad buttons broken with gutsy [regression]

[Adam Honse]

Binary package hint: hotkey-setup

This happens in Gutsy - it happened in the beta and now the final as well. In Feisty, I used the thinkpad-base package and other ThinkPad items in the repository and the ThinkPad's volume buttons controlled both the hardware and software mixer, same with the mute button. The volume up/down GUI would show on the screen when I pressed it. The brightness keys (Fn + Home, Fn + End) would also show a brightness meter.

However, Gutsy uses the hotkey-setup package, which fails entirely to do anything useful. It doesn't detect my laptop, so the buttons don't work, the volume doesn't work (well, it controls the hardware, but not the software and there is no popup display. The brightness changes, but the on screen display doesn't show.

The ThinkLight control does work (pidgin-thinklight, rocklight), however, but I'm pretty sure this is handled by the ibm-acpi or thinkpad-acpi kernel module.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Hello calc, thank you for your bug.

A couple of things changed; one was to most 'thinkpad-keys' polling (constantly checking) in most cases and to replace this with ACPI hotkey events.

The second was a last minute change with the kernel to stop the kernel automatically responding to brightness events; this won't work now unless 'gnome-power-manager' is there to deal with it. The longer term solution is a small daemon to sit there and handle the brightness.

Is the A21m one of the laptops that uses Fn-Backspace/Fn-Insert/Fn-Delete for volume, or does it have the separate volume keys.

Secondly, can you post the output of:

  cat /var/lib/acpi-support/*-*

which will help identify for hardware for enable the workarounds. Could you also try running:

  acpi_listen

and pressing the brightness/volume keys, then paste the annotated output here.

[Ian McIntosh (ian-mcintosh)]

I am seeing the same issue on a Thinkpad T23.

On-screen volume display worked in Feisty, but is broken in Gutsy.

One important fact: I boot with acpi=off, as APM works much better on this laptop.

Is there any information I can provide that will help, or have we given up on APM entirely??

[HughF (hugh-frater)]

I have an a21p and have just done an upgrade from feisty... Same problem not surprisingly.

cat /var/lib/acpi-support/*-*

this reports:

KYET37WW (1.10 )
IBM
2629HWU
Not Available

acpi_listen does not report any output when I press the volume buttons or brightness controls.

Hopefully someone can get a fix out for this. It's a shame that it doesn't work.

Hugh, UK

[Adam Honse (calcprogrammer1)]

adam@adam-laptop:~$ cat /var/lib/acpi-support/*-*
KYET38WW (1.11 )
IBM
2629H2U
Not Available
adam@adam-laptop:~$

That's the same thing that HughF said, and I have an A21p not A21m, the A21p has dedicated ThinkPad, Vol up, Vol down, and Vol Mute buttons. Brightness up is FN+Home, down FN+End, and ThinkLight is FN+PgUp.

adam@adam-laptop:~$ acpi_listen
battery BAT0 00000081 00000000
battery BAT0 00000081 00000001

The Volume up/down, brightness up/down, ThinkPad, mute, and ThinkLight buttons don't do anything. Just for a test, I pulled and reinserted the battery, and it responded to that with the battery messages.

So, if I install gnome-power-manager will that enable brightness checking? Please keep this bug in mind, there are many ThinkPad users that seem to be suffering from this change.

[drseuk (drseuk)]

Confirmed bug on Thinkpad T20 also.

[drseuk (drseuk)]

For the Thinkpad T20:

(separate volume keys,
brightness up is Fn+Home
brightness down is Fn+End)

# cat /var/lib/acpi-support/*-*

IYET60WW (1.21 )
IBM
264721G
Not Available

# acpi_listen

[no output generated]

[umlungu-ch (umlungu)]

Hello together

I've got a simular problem with my R51. The Volume works with the on-screen display, brightness works with now display. Here are my outputs:

umlungu@NB-R51:~$ cat /var/lib/acpi-support/*-*
1RETDHWW (3.13 )
IBM
18299MG
ThinkPad R51

umlungu@NB-R51:~$ acpi_listen
METHOD UCMS 00000000 00000000
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001011 Brightness down (Fn+End)
METHOD UCMS 00000000 00000000
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001010 Brightness up (Fn+Home)
METHOD UCMS 00000000 00000000
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001015 Volume up (separate Key)
METHOD UCMS 00000000 00000000
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001016 Volume down (separate Key)

I hope this will help to fix the problem.
I found this post, because I was looking for something, which would help me switching from Laptopscreen to external screen. The acpi_listen with Fn+F7 doesn't show any respond.

regards Heinz

[Axel Pospischil (apos)]

Hello altogether

same here with a Thinkpad R31.
Worked with Ubuntu 7.04/Feisty without problems.

cat /var/lib/acpi-support/*-*
 1FETF1WW (3.110)
 IBM
 265665G
 Not Available

acpi_listen
 button/power PWRF 00000080 00000001

NO ACPI events on any Volume Button or any of the Fn+Key combination.

dmesg | grep thinkpad
 thinkpad_acpi: ThinkPad ACPI Extras v0.14

All "FN+F-Key" nevertheless work - except the "Volume Up/Down and ThinkPad" Key. The "Mute" Key works, and pressing "Volume Up" will reenable sound (gnome-volume-mixer doesn't change).

By the way: I have to boot with the "irqpoll" and "i8042.nomux=1" option due to serious IRQ (nobody cares) problems that keep the usb/ethernet bus from working properly.
When "acpi_listen" shows working buttons this thread might help: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4002933

[Michael James (mbj1103)]

I've got an R60

Without the http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4002933 fix:
7CETC6WW (2.16 )
LENOVO
9457LSU
Thinkpad R60

michael@michael-laptop:~$ acpi_listen
video LCD0 00000087 00000000
video LCD0 00000086 00000000
button/lid LID 00000080 00000015
battery BAT0 00000080 00000001
battery BAT0 00000081 00000000
processor CPU0 00000080 00000003
processor CPU1 00000080 00000003
battery BAT0 00000080 00000000
battery BAT0 00000081 00000001
button/lid LID 00000080 00000016
battery BAT0 00000080 00000001

The first thing is Fn+end (display down); then I put it back up
Then I took the battery out and put it back in.
None other fn keys worked, or the volume keys, nor the blue "ThinkVantage" button.

With the fix:
It updated/upgraded: capplets-data, gnome-control-center, and libgnome-windows-settings1.
I noticed that the sound changed much more smoothly, but no OSD.

Same output even with the "fix".

[Adam Honse (calcprogrammer1)]

adam@adam-laptop:~$ acpi_listen
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001003
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001003
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001003
 ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00005001
button/lid LID 00000080 00000007
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00005002
button/lid LID 00000080 00000008

I tried this again, just to see if anything had changed after some months of updates.

First, I pressed the Fn+F3 (Turn Off Monitor) combination, which produced the "ibm/hotkey HKEY ....." messages. Then, I pressed Fn+Home and Fn+End (Brightness Up/Down), but nothing happened. I then pressed Volume UP, Volume DOWN, Mute, and ThinkPad buttons. Nothing happened. Then I pressed the lid switch, and it showed the "button/lid LID ...." messages (closed then opened). I then pushed the lever that ejects the CD drive in the drive bay (which usually triggers a suspend in Windows) but nothing happened. I would've taken out the battery, but I'm using it right now.

[Diane Trout (diane-trout)]

I have a X61 tablet, and the multimedia keys stopped working with a recent security update.

I was able to make it work again by adding

keycode 129 = XF86AudioMedia
keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 161 = XF86Calculator
keycode 162 = XF86AudioPause
keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 223 = XF86Standby

to my ~/.Xmodmap (an idea I got somewhere else on the net).

[Connor Imes (ckimes)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[HughF (hugh-frater)]

Hi,

I'm not sure if this bug is still present, I have upgraded my laptop
now so this isn't an issue for me anymore. Perhaps some of the other
posters still have an a21p and can try hardy heron to see if it has
been fixed?

Hugh

2008/8/23 Connor Imes <email address hidden>:
> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
> Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been
> any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue
> for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.
>
> --
> IBM Thinkpad A21p - Volume, Brightness, and ThinkPad buttons broken with gutsy [regression]
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/155213
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Adam Honse (calcprogrammer1)]

It still doesn't work on my A21p, no updates available on 8.04 and the Volume up/down buttons don't register, neither does the brightness up/down buttons. In 7.10, it came up with an indicator on screen showing brightness/volume levels. It still doesn't do anything in 8.04 (the volume/brightness changes but there is no display and the OS doesn't recognize the change).

[Connor Imes (ckimes)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Intrepid Ibex. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Chorca (chorca)]

I'm running Intrepid Alpha 5 on a Thinkpad R32. In standing with the other tests on here, i'll provide my current outputs from the aforementioned commands.

$ cat /var/lib/acpi-support/*-*
1MET93WW (2.12 )
IBM
2658CU3
Not Available

$ acpi_listen
ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001018 (ThinkPad Button)

Nothing produced while pressing volume up/down/mute (separate keys)
Nothing produced while pressing brightness up/down (Fn + Home/End)

Hope to help get this bug fixed for Intrepid's release!

[HughF (hugh-frater)]

http://rapidshare.com/files/370882195/new14.0.exe