power manager icon on system tray doesn't indicate battery status correctly

[Allan Caeg]

Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager

On Karmic (I didn't encounter this in older versions) 32 or 64 bit, gnome-power-manager icon always indicates that the battery is fully charged. Right now, I have the fully charged and plugged battery icon and the mouse hover tooltip says that the battery is fully charged. However, clicking the icon says that my battery is 11.5%. Conky and Kubuntu's battery monitor says the same.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Nov 29 11:42:52 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
Package: gnome-power-manager 2.28.1-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_PH.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
SourcePackage: gnome-power-manager
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic i686

[Jordi (jpahullo)]

Hello all,

This is the same that happens to me. In particular:

When I switch on my computer using only the battery, the Battery monitor
on the tray is showing ALWAYS that the battery is fully charged.
However, making a simple click onto the monitor icon, it shows a popup
with the actual percentage of remaining battery. In this situation, if I
do not verify frequently the remaining power, the computer
just runs out of battery and halts abruptly. When restarting, I had
to fscheck the filesystems. This is very dangerous.

However, I found a "trick" while this issue is not successfully addressed.
All this changes when I simply connect the PC
to the power (just less than a second) and the monitor changes:

* A popup shows that the the battery is discharging, as well as the remaining battery percentage and the time.
* The tray icon is showing that the battery is discharging.
* The popup information when click the icon remains the same than before.

In this situation, the battery monitor shows 2 alerts: the first one
some time before running out of battery (about 9% of battery) and the
second one when only 1-2% of battery remains. In both cases, the popup
alert shows correctly the percentage of battery, but do not show the
proper remaining time (just "unknown remaining time" or so). In
contrast, in this case, the computer switch off normally (as I have set
up in the settings).

All these problems appeared when upgrading to Karmic. In the previous
ubuntu release, all worked really fine.

My hardware settings are as follows (sudo lshw):

   description: Notebook
   product: HP Pavilion dv3500 Notebook PC
   vendor: Hewlett-Packard
   version: F.15
   serial: CNU9286D62
   width: 32 bits
   capabilities: smbios-2.4 dmi-2.4
   configuration: boot=normal chassis=notebook uuid=801A8556-865A-86F0-8786-881C88B2893E
 *-core
      description: Motherboard
      product: 1505
      vendor: Inventec
      physical id: 0
      version: KBC Version 13.14
      serial: Base Board Serial Number
      slot: Base Board Chassis Location
    *-firmware
         description: BIOS
         vendor: Hewlett-Packard
         physical id: 0
         version: F.15 (05/04/2009)
         size: 1MiB
         capabilities: pci upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppynec int13floppytoshiba int13floppy360 int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int9keyboard int10video acpi usb
    *-cpu
         description: CPU
         product: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T6400 @ 2.00GHz
         vendor: Intel Corp.
         physical id: 12
         bus info: cpu@0
         version: 6.7.10
         serial: 0001-067A-0000-0000-0000-0000
         slot: CPU
         size: 1200MHz
         capacity: 2GHz
         width: 64 bits
         clock: 800MHz
         capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx x86-64 constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 xsave lahf_lm cpufreq
         configuration: id=0
    *-pci
         description: Host bridge
         product: Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub...

[Thomas Schmidt (t-schmidt-p1)]

Had the same problem under Karmic and now again under Mint 9 (Lynx). Laptop FSC Esprimo Mobile U9200.

[Matt Jones (mjones41)]

I have a Fujitsu Esprimo U9200 Running Ubuntu 10.04, and I have the same problem.

Plug the AC charger in and I get the "discharging" pop up

Unplug the AC charger and the battery icon goes fully green

Strange behaviour. The battery does charge and discharge as it is meant to, but it is just Ubuntu is reading things some what in reverse.

[Allan Caeg (allancaeg)]

Still having the same issue on 10.04 32bit. If I'm not mistaken, this is
also true for 64bit.

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Matt Jones <email address hidden> wrote:

> I have a Fujitsu Esprimo U9200 Running Ubuntu 10.04, and I have the same
> problem.
>
> Plug the AC charger in and I get the "discharging" pop up
>
> Unplug the AC charger and the battery icon goes fully green
>
> Strange behaviour. The battery does charge and discharge as it is meant
> to, but it is just Ubuntu is reading things some what in reverse.
>
> --
> power manager icon on system tray doesn't indicate battery status correctly
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/489824
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “gnome-power-manager” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager
>
> On Karmic (I didn't encounter this in older versions) 32 or 64 bit,
> gnome-power-manager icon always indicates that the battery is fully charged.
> Right now, I have the fully charged and plugged battery icon and the mouse
> hover tooltip says that the battery is fully charged. However, clicking the
> icon says that my battery is 11.5%. Conky and Kubuntu's battery monitor says
> the same.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: i386
> Date: Sun Nov 29 11:42:52 2009
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
> Package: gnome-power-manager 2.28.1-0ubuntu1
> ProcEnviron:
> PATH=(custom, user)
> LANG=en_PH.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
> SourcePackage: gnome-power-manager
> Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic i686
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/489824/+subscribe
>

[Ryan S Kingsbury (ryanskingsbury)]

Yes, I'm still having this issue on Lucid 64-bit. After booting on battery power the Gnome indicator claims my battery is charged and connected to AC power. I can access the correct charge level by opening the power statistics window, or by plugging and unplugging the AC adapter.

My hardware configuration (sudo lshw) is attached.

[Matt Jones (mjones41)]

Problem still exists in Ubuntu with the power meter showing the incorrect state however;

- Ubuntu Host XP guest, XP will show correct battery charge and discharge states

- Also installing WMbattery in Ubuntu (from repo's) shows the correct state in it's graphic monitor, if only that one could be used in the system panel

seems like an easy fix, but there are quite a few bug reports on this, over the years and so far no one has been able to correct it.

[Krishna (krishnab)]

In ubuntu 10.10 Amd64, I always get (estimating . . .) .. I cannot see the battery charge level correctly....