Sony Vaio PCG-R505 Fn keys do not work as expected

[avdd]

I have sony vaio pcg-r505b/p

pressing Fn-F3/4/5 to control volume and dimmer causes many events to fire repeatedly, so that pressing vol-down once causes the volume to be muted and the volume status window thingie to constantly show on screen. If I stop acpid the volume status thingie goes away, but comes back when I restart acpid. I can only stop this by restarting the computer.

This is a regression in hardy.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

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.

[avdd (avdd)]

Quoth Teej (2008-12-01 22:36):
> 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.

It was still an issue in hardy. In 8.10 however, the hotkeys
appear not to work at all. But my Vaio is on its last legs so
this bug can probably be killed.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

I would still prefer if this was fixed, therefore if you would, can you follow the instructions provided at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting making sure you run the following and attach the log files as separate attachments:

lshal -m > lshal.log
dmesg > dmesg.log
lsinput > lsinput.log
xkbcomp -xkb :0 - > xkbcomp.txt
setxkbmap -print > xkbmap.txt

Also give any more relevant information you feel may help us in solving this problem.
Thank you.

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

I am affected by the same bug. Logs are attached, as requested. I'll be monitoring this thread and be ready to provide any additional information you might need. The laptop is Vaio PCG-R505EL, fresh install of 9.04

Thank you,
-- Alex

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

I am not sure if the following output is useful, here is what I got:
alex@sony-laptop:~/troubleshoot$ lsinput > lsinput.log
open /dev/input/event0: Permission denied
alex@sony-laptop:~/troubleshoot$ xkbcomp -xkb :0 - > xkbcomp.txt
Warning: Could not load keyboard geometry for :0
                  BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)
                  Resulting keymap file will not describe geometry

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

This is lshal -m output. Fn+F4 was pressed once, then I rolled the scroll wheel down, then up.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Set Medium importance. Can you try with with the Lucid 10.04 Beta 1 live CD please and let us know if this has already been fixed? Thank you.

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

> Can you try with with the Lucid 10.04 Beta 1 live CD please and let us know if this has already been fixed? Thank you.

Cannot verify the behavior on 10.04 Beta1: unable to get video. After the initial menu ("Try Ubuntu without installing"), screen flashes, but fails to show anything. On this model, it may be caused by bug #459547

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

Update: booted 10.04 Beta1 with nomodeset parameter.

Pressing Fn+F3 decreases volume. (keyboard icon for Fn+F3 suggests "mute")
Pressing Fn+F4 increases volume. (keyboard icon for Fn+F4 suggests "change volume")
Pressing Fn+F5 decreases brightness (keyboard icon for Fn+F5 suggests "change brightness")
Pressing Fn+F6 increases brightness (F6 has no Fn function marking).

Laptop is Sony Vaio PCG-R505EL.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Thanks for testing that for us. Could you follow the "Step-by-step Troubleshooting" section at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting and provide us with the information you obtain from doing this with all the buttons that are wrong/do not work as expected. This bug will then be able to be upgraded to be worked on by a developer. Thank you again.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Alex,

Do you consider the current behavior of keys F3 through F6 to be correct, or do you think further changes are needed here? "change volume" and "change brightness" don't tell what direction to change, of course, so the mappings you describe make sense to me.

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

Steve,

Current behavior is different from the originally intended behavior. It is better than when the bug was recorded; user can live with it. I would say the original behavior is a "nice to have".
The original behavior described below:
If you look at the laptop at http://lpfix.com/images/Sony%20Vaio%20PCG-505.JPG , you will see there's a scroll wheel between the two mouse buttons below the touchpad. The original behavior was this: Fn+F4 brings up a window displaying current volume level; the scroll wheel adjusted the value. In a similar way, Fn+F5 was used to control brightness. Fn+F3 was used to mute and unmute (no scroll wheel).

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Sounds like this was a Windows OSD function with Sony's provided drivers, as is standard for a lot of laptops. Looks like this needs implemented in gnome-power-manager somewhere, correct me if I'm wrong?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Yes, g-p-m might be the correct place to implement this. In any case, before there's a desktop component that can provide that interface I don't think there's any point in remapping the keys in the kernel since that would just cause a regression from where we are today. Reassigning to g-p-m.

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

Actually, the OSD applet is displayed when I press Fn+F3 through Fn+F6. From what I can see, only the keys must be remapped (assuming the scroll wheel is accessible).

[xteejx (xteejx)]

So just to clarify, the Fn buttons bring up the OSD for the correct function, i.e. brightness key brings up brightness, volume, volume, etc., but it is just the scroll is meant to control the up/down function, but doesn't? Is that right?

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

Yes. The Fn keys bring up OSD, but functions differ somewhat. Volume and brightness are controlled by repeating keystrokes, while in the original design they were controlled by the scroll wheel. Four Fn keys are used instead of original three; instant mute and going back to original volume after unmute is not available.
Original (Sony) key binding:
Fn+F3: mute/unmute
Fn+F4: scroll wheel controls volume
Fn:F5: scroll wheel controls brightness
Fn:F6: no function

Current binding (10.04 Beta1):
Fn+F3: decrease volume, muting after reaching minimum
Fn+F4: increase volume by repeating Fn+F4
Fn+F5: decrease brightness
Fn+F6: increase brightness

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Would be a good idea to get the codes for these keys. This can be done with xev I believe, which is detailed in the above link. If you can provide that then this should be able to be upgraded to Triaged status and passed onto a developer.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Also, can you provide the following, since it isn't already here:
udevadm info --export-db > udev-db.txt
sudo lsinput > lsinput.log
xkbcomp -xkb :0 - > xkbcomp.txt
setxkbmap -print > xkbmap.txt

And to clarify, the xev keycode instructions are in the Step-by-Step Troubleshooting section at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting
Thank you.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

This is just about volume keys, right?

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

Chris: no, it's both volume/mute and display brightness keys. Original functionality for brightness is Fn+F5 brings OSD, scroll wheel controls the value. As of 10.04 Beta1, Fn+F5 brings OSD and decreases brightness, Fn+F6 brings OSD and increases brightness; scroll wheel seems to be not functional.

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

lsinput.log for Vaio PCG-R505EL

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

udev-db.txt for Vaio PCG-R505EL

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

xkbcomp.txt for Vaio PCG-R505EL

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

xkbmap.txt for Vaio PCG-R505EL

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Thanks Alex. If you can go through the Step-by-Step troubleshooting as explained above and provide us with the information you obtain from that, then we should have all the information we need to mark this Triaged and have it passed on to a developer. Thanks again!! :)

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

Going through step-by-step troubleshooting:
1. killed gnome-settings-daemon and gnome-power-manager
2. run xev

xev reflects key strokes corresponding to F3 through F6.
There is no output from xev from either clicking or rotating the scroll wheel.

Attached is xev output from the following sequence of keys:

F3
F4
F5
F6
Fn+F3
Fn+F4
Fn+F5
Fn+F6

Please let me know if you need any more information,

[xteejx (xteejx)]

From the xev log we can see that it is producing scancodes correctly, but looks like they're probably mapped incorrectly, therefore can you please do the following:

(From https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting):

Exercise the "Fixing broken keys" section in /usr/share/doc/udev/README.keymap.txt

   1. If that was successful, attach your newly created keymap and rule.
   2. If udev's keymap tool shows a correct key symbol, look up the symbolic name in /usr/include/linux/input.h. If it is mapped to a code over 255 (over 0x0ff), then it is outside X's range see bug 313514. In this case, if it is important to have the key mapped, the key should be remapped to an appropriate value < 256.

If you need any help in doing this, please get back to us, or for a quicker response, help with things like this can be found on IRC at irc.freenode.net in the #ubuntu channel.

Thank you.

[Alex Emelianov (aemelianov)]

Teej,

I cannot continue beyond step 2 in Troubleshooting. The correct "keys" would be the events produced by the scroll wheel, but it does not produce anything visible through xev.

Alex

[xteejx (xteejx)]

No worries Alex thank you for having another go at it. Since the information you have supplied should be enough for a developer to take a look at, I have marked this Triaged and will let them handle it from here. Thanks again for reporting this and good luck! :)