ubuntu freezes when power plug is plugged in or out

[Evertjan Garretsen]

Binary package hint: pm-utils

I'm experiencing freezes of Ubuntu when pluggin in or out my Power plug. I've found the following blog entry when i was looking for a solution for the problem:

--- BEGIN OF BLOG ENTRY ---

I wrote a post several months back regarding a problem with my Dell Studio 15 laptop (with ATI graphics and Broadcom wireless adapter) and Ubuntu 10.10. When running the laptop from the mains all was well. However, if I unplugged the charger, and ran the laptop from the battery (as designed!) it would freeze within a couple of minutes. At the time I reverted back to Ubuntu 9.10.

Another release on (11.04) and the problem still exists! Something I find quite shocking as it’s a show-stopping bug. Thankfully after googling around I found a simple fix, in that most people suggest downgrading the pm-utils package to the “Lucid” 9.10 version.

    Open up Synaptic Package Manager
    Settings > Repositories > Other Software, then add the following:
    deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main
    “Reload” the package list
    Find “pm-utils” then go to Package > Force Version.. and select 1.3.x
    Install the downgraded package
    Find “pm-utils” again, go to Package > Lock Version

All done, I no longer have any freezes. The issue from reading around is two-pronged. One issue seems to be around the wireless card, and putting it into powersaving mode. The other seems to be something wrong with xserver, or the ATI drivers. I did try turning on power saving on my wireless card by adding “iwconfig eth1 power off” to “/etc/rc.local” (before the exit 0 line), which reduced how quickly freezing occurred, but it still did occur at some point.

Since downgrading pm-utils though, my laptop has been running Ubuntu 11.04 happily. The fan was running full blast (and laptop quite hot) at first, but this was fixed by installing the fglrx drivers via the “System > Administration > Additional Drivers” tool.
--- END OF BLOG ENTRY ---

The blog entry can be seen on the following URL:

http://www.robertbeal.com/1248/ubuntu-10101104-freezing-battery-power

Is this bug being taken care of already?

I don't know if the above solution works in my case i will try it and post the results shortly.

I sometimes also experience this problem on my other notebook though not as frequently as on this notebook.

It indeed is a show-stopper and really annoying for each time the plug (accidentally) is removed the notebook freezes after some time, in my case within a minute.

Please look after this bug.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: pm-utils 1.4.1-7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic-pae 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue May 24 23:16:21 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110427.1)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: pm-utils
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Evertjan Garretsen (egarretsen)]

I tried te fix above and it still freezed after 1 minute after i plugged out the power cord. WIll test some more .... (I've to restart after every freeze, for Ubuntu doesn't respond to anything after the freeze).

[Evertjan Garretsen (egarretsen)]

Ubuntu again froze after i restarted on battery and reconected the power-cord, again after about 1 mnute. In my opinion this is a critical bug.

[Evertjan Garretsen (egarretsen)]

also found the following ubuntu forum entry:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1666052

--- BEGIN OF ENTRY ---

Freezes when connecting power supply or when power supply is connected.
Hi guys,

I have a HP Compaq mini 311c, and most of the time it works fine. But as soon I connect my power supply, the problems start. Very soon after connecting the power supply the system freezes completely, no mouse, keyboard or anything works at all.

Also, when booting with power supply connected, it oftens freezes while booting (red dots stop blinking).

When I click the battery icon in gnome, normally it would give you the battery percentage, but here it only says 'Estimating..'. When I click the menu item, the battery statistics window pops up, and there the percentage does show up.

Any idea why this is happening, and how I can fix this?

--- END OF ENTRY ---

And another possibly related entry on a forum:

http://programmingbulls.com/ubuntu-freezes-when-connecting-power-supply-or-when-power-supply-connected

-- BEGIN OF POST ---

Hi guys,

I have a *HP Compaq mini 311c*, and most of the time it works fine. But as soon I connect my power supply, the problems start. Very soon after connecting the power supply the system freezes completely, no mouse, keyboard or anything works at all.

Also, when booting with power supply...

-- END OF POST ---

[David L. Kaplan (78lu-launchpad-a811)]

If the power was disconnected on my Toshiba Satellite L505D-S5983, upon reconnection the machine froze. Downgrading the pm-utils package to 1.3 as provided in Lucid fixed the problem.

[go4run (goran-stepic)]

It affects me too in the following configuration: Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit, Lenovo Thinkapd W520, dedicated graphic Nvidia 2000M selected in BIOS, Nvidia proprietary driver installed. Running in the docking station oder with power supply no issues, running on battery the boot process stops at the line: "... <30>udev[84]: starting version 167".
The same behaviour occures if using the experimental Nuveau driver.
Running without issues on battery wenn integrated IntelHD 3000 graphic selected in BIOS.

[go4run (goran-stepic)]

Suggested workaround by forcing pm-utils to version 1.3.x did not work for me...

[perezxolote (perezxolote)]

Same problem here on eee pc 1000h, exactly as described in the first quoted blog entry.
This is definitely not a duplicate of of #776999: the freezes here are delayed and are not related to every acpi action. Further, bug #776999 is apparently mainly triggered by changing screen brightness and not by switching from AC to battery.
This is also IMO a critical bug.

[Cley Faye (1vd1jn03c)]

This bugs looks like the issue in this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1679008
And in this case it's not strictly related to ACPI (unlike bug #776999).

In this case, the issue (freeze shortly after unplugging AC) seem related to a network driver issue, triggered by the disable_wol script (in /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/disable_wol), so it's not really a problem with pm-utils either.

Anyway, removing disable_wol stopped the issue in this case (I can now unplug/replug the AC and mess with the network interface without freeze or network issues).

[Evertjan Garretsen (egarretsen)]

My problem is solved with updating to 12.04 ASUS x56TR no longer freezes.

[Dawid Laszuk (laszukdawid)]

This also affects me.
I have Ubuntu 12.04 with 3.7.1 kernel on Dell Vostro 3460 with Nvidia 630M.

[Bernhard Cygan (bcygan)]

When running 3.7 kernels, this is not a duplicate, but a kernel bug (see https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51661)

[atoyaare (labarre-anthony)]

I'm affected by this on my Acer Aspire -5830TG ever since I upgraded to 13.04 (tried switching to Mint, then a fresh install, but to no avail). I was previously on 12.10 and had no problem.