ASUS G60J keyboard backlight brightness hotkeys don't work

[C.J. Collier]

The following troubleshooting indicates that an ACPI events fired by the keyboard backlight up/down hotkeys are not being propagated as an input events.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting

See section 6a:

run xev to test whether a keypress event is seen:
xev | sed -n 's/^.*state \([0-9].*\), keycode *\([0-9]\+\) *\(.*\), .*$/keycode \2 = \3, state = \1/p'

if the key code is wrong, or >there is no keypress event<, or the key only works once and then the desktop gets "stuck", exercise the "Fixing broken keys" section in /usr/share/doc/udev/README.keymap.txt (Ubuntu 9.10 and later).

  Find broken scan codes:
  sudo /lib/udev/keymap -i input/eventX

if >not found with keymap<, use >acpi_listen< to determine whether the key is coming through as an ACPI event instead of a keypress

$ acpi_listen # 0xC4 = up, 0xC5 = down
hotkey ATKD 000000c4 00000011
hotkey ATKD 000000c5 00000011

if >there is an ACPI event but no keypress<, this is a bug in the kernel (ubuntu-bug linux) for not translating the ACPI event to an input event.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC663 Analog [ALC663 Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: cjac 2304 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf4700000 irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Realtek ALC663'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0663,10431303,00100001'
   Controls : 24
   Simple ctrls : 14
CheckboxSubmission: 71940e25d1716db6629c05795f7a5e2d
CheckboxSystem: 7572a03ced97b60af945f51b4bd8c88a
Date: Sun Mar 7 00:26:38 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=2eb002fc-8e79-48aa-8f07-7cb461439c81
MachineType: ASUSTek Computer Inc. G60J
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: linux-image-2.6.31-20-generic 2.6.31-20.57
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic root=/dev/mapper/vg0-newroot ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-20.57-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-20-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.26
SourcePackage: linux
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-20-generic x86_64
dmi.bios.date: 10/16/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 204
dmi.board.asset.tag: ATN12345678901234567
dmi.board.name: G60J
dmi.board.vendor: PEGATRON CORPORATION
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: ATN12345678901234567
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: PEGATRON Computer Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr204:bd10/16/2009:svnASUSTekComputerInc.:pnG60J:pvr1.0:rvnPEGATRONCORPORATION:rnG60J:rvr1.0:cvnPEGATRONComputerInc.:ct10:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.name: G60J
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: ASUSTek Computer Inc.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi C.J.,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 533690

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

    [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[C.J. Collier (cjcollier)]

Hi there Jeremy,

I've been running lucid for a few weeks now. The keyboard backlight is
now on, but I still don't get changes when pressing the key combination
that should make the change.

It looks like xev is picking up the keypresses now:

$ xev | sed -n 's/^.*state \([0-9].*\), keycode *\([0-9]\+\) *\(.*\), .*$/keycode \2 = \3, state = \1/p'
keycode 238 = (keysym 0x1008ff05, XF86KbdBrightnessUp), state = 0x0
keycode 238 = (keysym 0x1008ff05, XF86KbdBrightnessUp), state = 0x0
keycode 237 = (keysym 0x1008ff06, XF86KbdBrightnessDown), state = 0x0
keycode 237 = (keysym 0x1008ff06, XF86KbdBrightnessDown), state = 0x0

as is udev:

$ sudo /lib/udev/keymap -i input/event8
Press ESC to finish
scan code: 0x00 key code: kbdillumdown
scan code: 0x00 key code: kbdillumup
scan code: 0x00 key code: kbdillumdown
scan code: 0x00 key code: kbdillumup

as is acpi_listen:

$ acpi_listen
hotkey ATKD 000000c5 0000000a
hotkey ATKD 000000c4 0000000d

$ uname -a
Linux dev0 2.6.32-trunk-amd64 #1 SMP Sat Dec 26 17:13:29 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ dpkg -l | grep linux-image-2.6.32
ii linux-image-2.6.32-trunk-amd64 2.6.32-3 Linux 2.6.32 for 64-bit PCs

Cheers,

C.J.

On Tue, 2010-04-27 at 03:36 +0000, Jeremy Foshee wrote:
> Hi C.J.,
>
> This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .
>
> If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.
>
> apport-collect -p linux 533690
>
> Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]
>
>
> ** Tags added: needs-kernel-logs
>
> ** Tags added: needs-upstream-testing
>
> ** Tags added: kj-triage
>
> ** Changed in: linux (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[ALLurGroceries (allurgroceries)]

I wrote a small program to trap Fn+F3 and Fn+F4 to change the backlight brightness. You can find it here: http://allurgroceries.com/asuskledd/

[C.J. Collier (cjcollier)]

works for me. Can you get it packaged up as a .deb?

[ALLurGroceries (allurgroceries)]

Sure, once I have time to pack it into a deb I will post here. Thanks for testing it. :)

[ALLurGroceries (allurgroceries)]

It's easier to do with scripts for acpid but I had to add a line for it to work for me: http://forum.notebookreview.com/linux-compatibility-software/451594-asus-rog-g73-ubuntu-2.html#post6219509

[Laurent Dinclaux (dreadlox)]

The bug still there in Lucid as of today (ASUS G510J)

[Laurent Dinclaux (dreadlox)]

Here is my fix to make hotkeys work to change keayboard backlight brightness:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9683440#post9683440

Note: For Lucid only and tested on ASUS MODEL G51J (MB VER.: G60JX - G51JX-SZ050V)

[Fabien LOISON (flozz)]

Wht I have not seen this script before... :(

I also wrote a script ... But mine restores the last brightness at startup and resume...
I made a .deb package.

https://launchpad.net/asus-keyboard-backlight

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.