Unable to modify brightness when the screen is locked

[Alessio Bolognino]

Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager

I'm on Lucid fully updated, gnome-power-manager 2.30.0-0ubuntu1

Sometimes I find hard to unlock the screen because I can't increase the brightness of my laptop display with multimedia keys (I think that's their name). This is really annoying when there is no other light source in the room and you can't literally see anything.
I would expect to be able to modify the brightness (and maybe the volume too?) even when the screen is locked.

For the record other operating systems (e.g. MacOSX) let you do that.
---
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
GnomeSessionIdleInhibited: No
GnomeSessionInhibitors: None
GnomeSessionSuspendInhibited: No
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Release Candidate amd64 (20100419.1)
MachineType: Apple Inc. MacBook2,1
Package: gnome-power-manager 2.30.0-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=UUID=cb522fb1-6de2-4926-a8cb-b4c02e0124ae ro quiet splash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.39-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
dmi.bios.date: 06/27/07
dmi.bios.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.bios.version: MB21.88Z.00A5.B07.0706270922
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: Mac-F4208CA9
dmi.board.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.board.version: PVT
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: Mac-F4208CA9
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAppleInc.:bvrMB21.88Z.00A5.B07.0706270922:bd06/27/07:svnAppleInc.:pnMacBook2,1:pvr1.0:rvnAppleInc.:rnMac-F4208CA9:rvrPVT:cvnAppleInc.:ct10:cvrMac-F4208CA9:
dmi.product.name: MacBook2,1
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: Apple Inc.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please open a terminal and execute: apport-collect 576744 ? It will attach the necessary information to this report. Thanks in advance.

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

apport information

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

I provided the information requested.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. A new version of Gnome Power Manager is available on Maverick and we are wondering if this bug is still an issue for you with that version? Could you please test and comment back? Thanks in advance.

[Alessio Bolognino (themolok)]

The problem is still here.

[Tomi Hukkalainen (tpievila)]

I'm not what is required to raise the importance of the bug, but this is much more major usability problem than just "low". Given a non technical user, the screen is just black without any hints on what the user can do. This is equivalent to the system just plain crashing or freezing. A more clever user might attempt to write the password blindly, and even try pressing the caps lock if the first attempt doesn't work, but this is just unacceptable.

It's even worse in natty, where the brightness goes to zero when removing the power cable, even if all relevant settings are disabled in power management GUI.

[Onno Steenbergen (osteenbergen)]

This bug affects me as well.

There are a lot of use cases where this happens either a user disables the screen (working on a second monitor) or the automatic features disable it. If the PC/laptop is then locked there is no way of enabling the backlight.

This should be enabled for the main shortcuts like:
- Backlight
- Keyboard backlight
- Volume

And could be enabled for the media buttons (play/pause)

I experience this bug multiple times a week so as Tomi Pieviläinen said the importance could be higher.