brightness keys (Fn+F7 & Fn+F8) on Presario v3425au on hardy

[Sukhjinder Singh]

Hello everyone,
I've just installed hardy on my compaq persario v3425au.
Everything is working fine except Fn+F7 & Fn+F8 keys which are used to set the brightness of the LCD.
I am not able to adjust my LCD's brightness in any way.
Its also not done by brightness applet.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and help to improve Ubuntu.

Is this problem still present with Ubuntu 9.10? If so, please walk through the steps described at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting to help us determine where the hotkeys are being lost.

[MikeCz (mikec-busworks)]

FWIW: I have a Compaq Presariu CQ60-211DX, and I did the distribution upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10, and I have the same issue. All the other Fn key combos work properly, but Fn+F6 doesn't lock the screen as it should.

If that helps.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

MikeCz,

Which issue are you having? This bug is about Fn+F7 and Fn+F8 brightness keys, but then you mention Fn+F6.

[MikeCz (mikec-busworks)]

> MikeCz,
>
> Which issue are you having? This bug is about Fn+F7 and Fn+F8
> brightness keys, but then you mention Fn+F6.

Upon re-reading it, I see I need to turn in my English degree.... ;-)

Since doing the distribution upgrade to 9.10, Fn+F6, Fn+F7 and Fn+F8 do not
work as they did under 9.04. On the Presariou CQ60-211DX, their respective
functions are Locking the Screen, Brightness Down and Brightness Up. So I
am having the issue, with an additional symptom that may or may not be
related. All the other pre-mapped Fn key combos work (I mainly use the
volume control shortcuts).

FWIW: I ran xev and found that X isn't reading Fn+F6, 7 or 8.

Except for this (and the annoyance of no longer being able to toggle off the
startup splash screen with Alt-F1 during boot up and shutdown to watch the
console messages), I really like 9.10. Much faster, subjectively, than 9.04
on the hardware.

MikeC

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

MikeCz,

Can you please run the 'acpi_listen' command, and report here any output produced when you press the brightness keys?

Since you mention that these keys stopped working for you only after upgrading to 9.10, you probably have a different bug than the original submitter of this report.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

I suspect that your problem is caused by the following change in the acpi-support package in Ubuntu 9.10:

  * Drop events/video_brightness{down,up}, video_brightness{up,down}.sh: at
    least some platforms that use these ACPI sequences are seeing them
    correctly translated to input events, so those users will see duplicate
    events unless we drop them. LP: #178860.

If this is the case, then fixing this for you will require a kernel change.

[MikeCz (mikec-busworks)]

> MikeCz,
>
> Can you please run the 'acpi_listen' command, and report here any output
> produced when you press the brightness keys?
>
> Since you mention that these keys stopped working for you only after
> upgrading to 9.10, you probably have a different bug than the original
> submitter of this report.

acpi_listen generates nothing, either as my normal user or when I sudo it.

Interestingly, it doesn't even generate anything even if I use Fn key combos
that do work (namely Fn +- and Fn + +, which raises and lowers the sound
volume).

MikeC

[MikeCz (mikec-busworks)]

> I suspect that your problem is caused by the following change in the
> acpi-support package in Ubuntu 9.10:
>
> * Drop events/video_brightness{down,up}, video_brightness{up,down}.sh:
> at
> least some platforms that use these ACPI sequences are seeing them
> correctly translated to input events, so those users will see
> duplicate
> events unless we drop them. LP: #178860.
>
> If this is the case, then fixing this for you will require a kernel
> change.

Since I'm not particularly comfortable doing manual kernel patching, is this
something that will be upgraded/fixed in 10.04?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

> acpi_listen generates nothing, either as my normal user or when I sudo it.

Then your problem is not related to acpi-support. Please file a new bug report against the linux package.

> Since I'm not particularly comfortable doing manual kernel patching, is this something that will be upgraded/fixed in 10.04?

That's entirely dependent on someone who has the hardware working with the Ubuntu kernel team to resolve the problem. The https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting page, mentioned earlier, includes a list of things to check, to determine where the keypress events are getting lost.

[scottuss (scottuss)]

I've got the same problem on my Samsung R730, I suspect it's gnome-power-manager because the screen brightness does not dim when I unplug the AC after Ubuntu has loaded and it does not get brighter if I plug it in when Ubuntu has loaded.

Also, Fn + Up / Down should alter the brightness, but it doesn't work.

[sleipnirnkn (sir-naiok)]

I've got a HP Compaq 6735s and the same issue with bright.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for acpi-support (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]