[Feisty] Thinkpad (all models) LCD brightness control cycles between lowest settings only

[Ilmari Vacklin]

Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager

Using Fn+home/end, I can only switch the LCD brightness between the two lowest levels. On the higher level, pressing fn+home will momentarily switch to a brighter level, then switch back to the lowest level.

The brightness applet says "Cannot get laptop panel brightness" on mousehover, and doesn't function at all.

There are a few similar bugs already in Launchpad, but the exact symptoms here are a bit different.

[Martin Emrich (emme)]

Exactly the same here (Feisty on Thinkpad T41p). With the brightness applet, moving the slider up and down results in flickering, on it's way there are several positions where the brightness changes non-continous (jumps down to the lowest or up to the brightest level), as if several forces are fighting over the control over the screen brightness.

[Thomas Wolfe (tomwolfe)]

same here as well on a regular T41.

[Johan Van Hellemont (johan-van-hellemont)]

Confirmed here on my T42,up-to-date Herd 2.
Flickering when I move the slider up and down,my brightness applet says
"LCD brightness : 0%" ,however the brightness is set to the highest level.

johan@T42:~$ cat /proc/acpi/ibm/brightness
level: 7
commands: up, down
commands: level <level> (<level> is 0-7)

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

This is down to interaction with 'thinkpad-keys' in 'hotkey-setup'.

Changing the slider updates the NVRAM values for the brightness. 'thinkpad-keys' notices the changes and thinks it's a key-press (Fn-Home/Fn-End), and generates 'Brightness Up' or 'Brightness Down' commands. 'gnome-settings-daemon' sees "key press" and moves the slider again... -> loop.

Mostly this normally resolves itself, but on ThinkPads we really need a way to brightness key presses not to take any action, but *only* to cause the status to be displayed in the centre of the screen.

[Tony Yarusso (tonyyarusso)]

Confirm on a Thinkpad T43p.

Booting with the noacpi option still has this problem.

A workaround (to avoid going insane...) is to open the Power Mgmt preferences from gnome-control-center, and under your current setup (ie AC power), slide the brightness slider all the way up to 100%, then lower it back down to 95%. Close g-c-c, and it will stay at 95% brightness for the rest of the day. However, if you touch the brightness keys at all, it falls back to only the two lowest settings, unless you open g-c-c and do that over again.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

could you please check if 2.17.90-0ubuntu3 of gnome-power-manager fixes it

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Please _don't_ try booting with 'noacpi' in this case. It will have the affect of /disabling/ all the power-management and related code!

The solution is to not have g-p-m take any notice of Brightness Key events on ThinkPads *or* to not fake those Key events in the first place.

Doing:

  sudo killall thinkpad-keys

should cut the loop and stop this behaviour---however that's not the solution...

[Matthew Garrett (mjg59)]

The key events need to be generated in order to trigger the brightness
information.
/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-laptop-panel-mgmt-policy.fdi
needs fixing to recognise all Thinkpads, rather than the somewhat
bizarre subset that it currently does. This isn't a g-p-m issue, unless
it's ignoring that key.

[Thomas Schwinge (tschwinge)]

Even when forcing `laptop_panel.brightness_in_hardware' to `true' and running ``sudo /etc/dbus-1/event.d/20hal restart'' then nothing changes for me.

#v+
thomas@dirichlet:~ $ lshal | grep smbios\\.system
  smbios.system.uuid = 'E6AD6601-47B4-11CB-9D17-B9A7D720E5A3' (string)
  smbios.system.serial = 'L3WX2X5' (string)
  smbios.system.version = 'ThinkPad T42' (string)
  smbios.system.product = '2373K9G' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
#v-

This is also described in <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/81920/comments/1> .

I'm using the very latest Feisty versions 2.17.90-0ubuntu4 of `gnome-power-manager' and 0.5.8.1-4ubuntu4 of `hal'.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

Bug #81920 claims that the problem is because "Brightness is 0 due to setting a non-schema value"

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Happening on a regular T43 too (all Thinkpads?).

A workaround for me was to do "killall gnome-power-manager", then I can use the brightness keys fine.

[Miguel Gaspar (ghaspias)]

This also happens in a Asus L3C laptop (Feisty, upgraded 5-02-2007). Altough if I change brightness via g-p-m-brightness-applet it will show the correct value in the tooltip, until I pop the scroll, which will always show at 0% and reset the tooltip to 0%. It still flickers badly when adjusting via the scroll.
No problems setting brightness via Fn-F5/F6, though.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

Miguel Gasper is right. I have an ASUS M6Ne. I think that there is a misfuncion in gnome-power-manager guis (changing the values from gconf editor works). the applet did work in the past!

I get these errors:
[gpm_hal_device_get_bool] gpm-hal.c:204 (12:22:52): ERROR: No property laptop_panel.brightness_in_hardware on device with id /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_brn
[gpm_hal_device_get_bool] gpm-hal.c:210 (12:22:52): GetPropertyBoolean failed!

.....

[emit_button_pressed] gpm-button.c:321 (12:28:44): emitting button-pressed : brightness-up
[button_pressed_cb] gpm-manager.c:787 (12:28:44): Button press event type=brightness-up
[button_pressed_cb] gpm-srv-screensaver.c:173 (12:28:44): Button press event type=brightness-up
[button_pressed_cb] gpm-srv-backlight.c:399 (12:28:44): Button press event type=brightness-up
[gpm_brightness_lcd_set_hw] gpm-brightness-lcd.c:155 (12:28:44): Setting 1 of 15
[gpm_brightness_lcd_set_hw] gpm-brightness-lcd.c:162 (12:28:44): ERROR: Too many arguments in reply; expected 0, got 1
*** WARNING ***

[Ryan Rawdon (flieslikeabrick)]

Confirmed on my Thinkpad T42 and T40

Echoing 'up' 'down' or level commands into /proc/acpi/ibm/brightness results in it immediately being reset to level 0

Not sure if this is gnome-power-manager that has the problem or something lower-level. Testing it without gnome-power-manager running sees the keys working.

This all worked 100% fine in <= Edgy

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

not only thinkpads, Paul, also Asus!

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

it would be helpful if everybody on this bug could file the values of:

lshal| grep smbios

to see what we need to add to the fdi file.

[Martey Dodoo (martey)]

I removed my uuid and serial number, but everything else is there.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

funny, the fdi file has pattern matching for all kind of IBM laptops, but expects the maunfacturer to be LENOVO ... seems none of the submitted outputs have LENOVO at all :)

with IBM we only seem to match the X31

[Jan Alonzo (jmalonzo)]

Hi! I've attached the values for a T42.

cheers.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

burner@phoenix:~$ lshal| grep smbios
  smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
  smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
  smbios.system.uuid = '25032381-4603-11CB-814B-B8B2714578FB' (string)
  smbios.system.serial = '78AXDD7' (string)
  smbios.system.version = 'Not Available' (string)
  smbios.system.product = '236697U' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
  smbios.bios.release_date = '06/11/2004' (string)
  smbios.bios.version = '1IET69WW (2.08 )' (string)
  smbios.bios.vendor = 'IBM' (string)

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

smbios.system.version = 'Not Available'
doesnt seem like something we can match on ... :/

[Troels Faber (troelsfaber)]

Another T42, but different model. The product number differs, does that really matters, or what??

  smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
  smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
  smbios.system.uuid = XXX
  smbios.system.serial = 'XXX
  smbios.system.version = 'ThinkPad T42' (string)
  smbios.system.product = '2374VSG' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
  smbios.bios.release_date = '06/02/2006' (string)
  smbios.bios.version = '1RETDPWW (3.21 )' (string)
  smbios.bios.vendor = 'IBM' (string)

[Matthew East (mdke)]

On Mon, February 12, 2007 7:56 pm, Oliver Grawert wrote:
> smbios.system.version = 'Not Available'
> doesnt seem like something we can match on ... :/

Disclaimer - this comment is made without any technical knowledge of the
relevant problem, but here goes:

How did it work in previous releases? Maybe there is an easier solution
based on that? It seems pretty odd to me that making this work depends on
matching the bios for each machine that is broken - what happens if some
get missed out?

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

they will keep being broken, thats why i asked for the lshal data. how would you want to fix the real problem ? we cant patch the broken BIOSes, we can only work around the existing breakage.

apart from that the fix to match all ThinkPads is a change of three letters in the fdi file, it appears that thinkpads used to report the manufacturer as LENOVO, while they now report IBM ...

[Milosz Tanski (mtanski)]

  smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
  smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'LENOVO' (string)
  smbios.system.uuid = 'DC439A01-47BD-11CB-9A27-E05FE6B5D5B0' (string)
  smbios.system.serial = 'LR00281' (string)
  smbios.system.version = 'ThinkPad Z61t' (string)
  smbios.system.product = '944289U' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'LENOVO' (string)
  smbios.bios.release_date = '11/23/2006' (string)
  smbios.bios.version = '7FET94WW (2.12 )' (string)
  smbios.bios.vendor = 'LENOVO' (string)

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

i changed the IBM section to match all ThinkPads for now, please check for whom it fixes the issue and report back.

 hal (0.5.8.1-4ubuntu6) feisty; urgency=low
 .
   * add 60_fix_thinkpad_fdi_entries.patch to hopefully
     fix IBM ThinkPad brightness key handling for all think pads reporting
     IBM as vendor instead of LENOVO (malone bug #81407)

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

ok but what about asus laptops? I'm sure it worked before!!! after an
upgrade it stopped working...

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

For sh*ts and giggles, I updated my T30's bios to the latest (2.10 from 2006-06-27). I still get the same symptoms. My updated lshal now looks like this:

  smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
  smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
  smbios.system.uuid = [redacted]
  smbios.system.serial = [redacted]
  smbios.system.version = 'Not Available' (string)
  smbios.system.product = '236697U' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
  smbios.bios.release_date = '06/16/2006' (string)
  smbios.bios.version = '1IET71WW (2.10 )' (string)
  smbios.bios.vendor = 'IBM' (string)

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

On Mo, 2007-02-12 at 20:56 +0000, Nicolò Chieffo wrote:
> ok but what about asus laptops? I'm sure it worked before!!! after an
> upgrade it stopped working...
i'm pretty sure there are more issues than only the hal fdi file ...
lets fix this step by step :)

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

This is mine, toshiba tablet M400, it worked fine in edgy, and in feisty I get

*** WARNING ***
[gpm_brightness_lcd_set_hw] gpm-brightness-lcd.c:167 (13:39:58): SetBrightness failed!
[gpm_brightness_lcd_set_hw] gpm-brightness-lcd.c:155 (13:39:58): Setting 6 of 7
[gpm_brightness_lcd_set_hw] gpm-brightness-lcd.c:162 (13:39:58): ERROR: Too many arguments in reply; expected 0, got 1

lshal follows:

  smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
  smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'TOSHIBA' (string)
  smbios.system.uuid = '70822300-BFE1-11D3-80D4-AD0566863013' (string)
  smbios.system.serial = '66863013G' (string)
  smbios.system.version = 'PPM40E-00700UIT' (string)
  smbios.system.product = 'PORTEGE M400' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'TOSHIBA' (string)
  smbios.bios.release_date = '05/09/2006' (string)
  smbios.bios.version = 'Version 1.50' (string)
  smbios.bios.vendor = 'TOSHIBA' (string)

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

I can also report that my fiance's T22 gives "smbios.system.version = 'Not Available' (string)", at least under edgy.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

OK, here's what I've done to workaround the problem on my Thinkpad T30 until it's correctly fixed:

$ sudoedit /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-laptop-panel-mgmt-policy.fdi

I then added this stanza near the bottom:
  <device>
    <match key="info.category" string="laptop_panel">
      <match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:smbios.system.manufacturer" string="IBM">
        <match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:smbios.system.product" contains="2366">
          <merge key="laptop_panel.brightness_in_hardware" type="bool">true</merge>
        </match>
      </match>
    </match>
  </device>

Note that my smbios.system.project was optained from my product number from lshal (236697U). Then I did
$ sudo invokerc.d dbus restart

gnome-power-manager crashed, so I restarted it, and now the brightness buttons work and the brightness policy from g-p-m works, too.

The only problem that remains is that the brightness popup (the box with the sun icon and meter) always stays zeroed regardless of how high I turn up the brightness.

[Ryan Rawdon (flieslikeabrick)]

This looks to have been fixed in one of today's batches of updates, can anyone confirm that it is working?

It started working again on my T40 and T42.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

On Mon, 2007-02-12 at 19:58 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
> Disclaimer - this comment is made without any technical knowledge of the
> relevant problem, but here goes:
>
> How did it work in previous releases? Maybe there is an easier solution
> based on that? It seems pretty odd to me that making this work depends on
> matching the bios for each machine that is broken - what happens if some
> get missed out?

I remain confused on this point, especially after looking at the fdi
files on an edgy box. What changed in hal for feisty that's causing it
to require workarounds that weren't necessary for edgy?

None of the thinkpads I have access to (between 4 and 6 years old, so
only IBM touched them) ever reported Lenovo as the manufacturer.

And, btw, the 60_fix_thinkpad_fdi_entries.patch is no help for my T30,
since it doesn't report as being a Thinkpad in the system version.

Did IBM ever make a laptop that wasn't a thinkpad?

[Matthew East (mdke)]

On Mon, February 12, 2007 9:16 pm, Oliver Grawert wrote:
> they will keep being broken, thats why i asked for the lshal data. how
> would you want to fix the real problem ? we cant patch the broken
> BIOSes, we can only work around the existing breakage.

Sorry, maybe I didn't explain my question. These laptops have all worked
fine with Dapper and Edgy, despite having the same BIOS and even though
some of them are made by lenovo, and others by IBM.

So, my questions were essentially: why is working around needed? And why
is the solution that worked great for Dapper and Edgy no longer an option?

I'm concerned that by requiring changing this fdi file referred to, some
models are going to stay broken.

Matt

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

I've received the hal update, but the fix is not working for asus laptops.

[Johan Van Hellemont (johan-van-hellemont)]

The update to hal 0.5.8.1-4ubuntu6 worked for me.
The problems that remains is about the brightness popup,what Michael have,
and the brightness applet, "LCD brightness : 0%"

[Martin Emrich (emme)]

Here's the data for my notebook (T41p):

  smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
  smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
  smbios.system.uuid = xxx
  smbios.system.serial = xxx
  smbios.system.version = 'ThinkPad T41p' (string)
  smbios.system.product = '2373GEG' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'IBM' (string)
  smbios.bios.release_date = '06/02/2006' (string)
  smbios.bios.version = '1RETDPWW (3.21 )' (string)
  smbios.bios.vendor = 'IBM' (string)

Ciao

Martin

[Martin Emrich (emme)]

After updating today, The hotkeys as well as the panel applet slider work again :)

[Johan Van Hellemont (johan-van-hellemont)]

I just updated g-p-m to 2.17.91-0ubuntu1 and everything works normal now.
Brightness popup and brightness applet.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

Yeah, everything's working now.

I don't think the fdi patch was needed (to fix this particular problem on my particular machine). I actually removed all device sections relating to thinkpads or IBM or Lenovo, rebooted, and everything is working peachily. Looking at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=340231 this doesn't seem to be the problem Crispin Flowerday was having on the Thinkpad X31.

I dunno how this got fixed, but I'm happy it did. Thanks!

[Vincenzo Ciancia (vincenzo-ml)]

Works for me too with the new gnome-power-manager, great :)

[Ilmari Vacklin (wolverian)]

The brightness applet is still broken here.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Confirmed fixed here with hal 0.5.8.1-4ubuntu6, thanks!

[André Rüdiger (andreruediger-deactivatedaccount)]

I think bug 61184 is a duplicate. Confirming anybody?

[Guido Conaldi (guido-conaldi)]

I'm having the same issue with a sony vaio vgn-s1xp on Fiesty Herd 5:

FN+F6/F7 don't change brightness and the Brightness applet can't get laptop panel brightness. The Fn keys worked correcly in Edgy.

Here is my data:

  smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
  smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'Sony Corporation' (string)
  smbios.system.uuid = 'xxxx-xx-xx-xxxx' (string)
  smbios.system.serial = 'xxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxx' (string)
  smbios.system.version = 'J0009F44' (string)
  smbios.system.product = 'VGN-S1XP(IT)' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'Sony Corporation' (string)
  smbios.bios.release_date = '12/23/2004' (string)
  smbios.bios.version = 'R0072G4' (string)
  smbios.bios.vendor = 'Phoenix Technologies LTD' (string)

Hope this is the right thread to post on

[JeromeCarman (nattybrew)]

Same Problem with Lenovo T60.

  smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
  smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'LENOVO' (string)
  smbios.system.version = 'ThinkPad T60' (string)
  smbios.system.product = '6371CTO' (string)
  smbios.system.manufacturer = 'LENOVO' (string)
  smbios.bios.release_date = '12/27/2006' (string)
  smbios.bios.version = '7IET23WW (1.04 )' (string)
  smbios.bios.vendor = 'LENOVO' (string)

Removed serial and uuid. Seems only the most recent laptops have the 'LENOVO' string instead of IBM.

[Øyvind Stegard (oyvindstegard)]

hal 0.5.9-1ubuntu2~feisty1
gnome-power-manager 2.18.2-0ubuntu3
Thinkpad Z61m (quite new model), BIOS fully updated.

smbios.bios.release_date = '04/17/2007' (string)
smbios.bios.vendor = 'LENOVO' (string)
smbios.bios.version = '7FET99WW (2.17 )' (string)
smbios.chassis.manufacturer = 'LENOVO' (string)
smbios.chassis.type = 'Notebook' (string)
smbios.system.manufacturer = 'LENOVO' (string)
smbios.system.product = '94503HG' (string)
smbios.system.serial = 'XXX' (string)
smbios.system.uuid = 'XXX' (string)
smbios.system.version = 'ThinkPad Z61m' (string)

Having weird behaviour with brightness:
- Pressing brightness-down button makes brightness slide down all the way to zero (you can see the meter sliding down, it becomes an unintended animation, I guess)
- Pressing brightness-up makes brightness slide all the way up to max in the same fashion.

Must be some sort of loop because of conflicting handler for the keys ?

This bug is definitely not fixed. Brightness-buttons are behaving in a weird way.

[Ryan Rawdon (flieslikeabrick)]

That sounds like a different bug altogether, especially seeing as how the one this was originally created for was fixed significantly before the release of Feisty. I suggest you create a new bug report for your findings, as they don't seem to be related to this bug.

[Ryan Rawdon (flieslikeabrick)]

Was fixed some time before the release of 7.04

[Ben Wilber (benwilber)]

exactly the same problem in Gutsy tribe 4 on Apple MacBook 1,1

[Tim Perry (pimterry)]

Also having this problem on an Apple Macbook. Core ONE Duo 1.83Ghz (not pro). It works almost perfectly if I kill gnome-power-manager, but with no on-screen brightness information at all. What details do you need?

[Whisky (xwhisky)]

I have macbook black first generation and I can confirm that this problem is still there!

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

you have a macbook and can confirm that LCD brigtness control on Thinkpads doesnt work ???
please open a new bug for that.

[tewe (molnar-emil)]

Ive a thinkpad r60e, and Gutsy, but the problem is still...

[Ryan Rawdon (flieslikeabrick)]

This problem is back in Gutsy on my T42. I have all of the updates as of today. The problem was gone since feisty was out, and has now showed up again in gutsy.

As before, killing gnome-power-manager makes it go away but kills the on-screen stuff when you toggle the brightness

[Troels Faber (troelsfaber)]

Confirmed here as well. Back in Gutsy as of today (g-p-m was upgraded to 2.19.6-0ubuntu4).

P.S. I have a T42.

Troels

[Eddie Hung (eddieh)]

I'm the owner of an X41 Thinkpad (not tablet) and I can confirm that I have seen a minor improvement in upgrading to the latest 2.19.6-0ubuntu4 today - I can now adjust the brightness of my laptop using the Fn keys, however, the GPM brightness indicator that pops up when I do is always either at zero, or at the one up from that. (This is better than it was previously - when previously pressing one direction would send it all the way to the maximum/minimum, though I think this is reported in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/123548).

[Chris Jones (cmsj)]

I'd never seen this on my X40 until yesterday (I am running gutsy and upgraded the most recent gutsy packages). Were there any -ubuntu patches for this which have been lost?

[Troels Faber (troelsfaber)]

It behaves exactly the same way as it did on Feisty, which was fixed.
I have a T42. g-p-m flashes the screen, going to min and then max a few times upon startup. After that, it's at min brightness at all times. Killing g-p-m fixes the brightness problem.

[Ohad Lutzky (lutzky)]

Confirming this problem for gutsy. However,

# lshal | grep laptop_panel.brightness_in_hardware
  laptop_panel.brightness_in_hardware = true (bool)

[Reed (wrkerr)]

confirming in gutsy on a T41

[Reed (wrkerr)]

Sorry, I spoke too soon. Its fixed here, as of the latest updates. Thanks guys, great work!

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

I believe this was fixed by Matthew Garrett's recent changes to acpi-support and hotkey-setup, on top of the other changes he made last week. However, there's a lot of confusion in this report and there may be multiple issues.

Can anyone confirm?

[Chris Jones (cmsj)]

I can confirm that mjg's upload fixed this issue here (thinkpad x40).

[Johan Van Hellemont (johan-van-hellemont)]

Fixed for me with the latest updates,Thinkpad T43.
Thanks!

[Ohad Lutzky (lutzky)]

Fixed for me as well, thanks!

On 9/10/07, Johan Van Hellemont <email address hidden> wrote:
> Fixed for me with the latest updates,Thinkpad T43.
> Thanks!
>
> --
> [Feisty] Thinkpad (all models) LCD brightness control cycles between lowest settings only
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/81407
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only
animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and
what they ought to be.
 - William Hazlitt

Ohad Lutzky

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Three confirmations is enough for me; this doesn't seem to have been a gnome-power-manager issue.

If anyone is still having problems, please open a separate bug, as we've clearly fixed one (class of) issues here.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

let's mark this as fixed too.