HP laptop battery is not recognized or correctly managed

[Rob Nickmans]

Ubuntu doesn't detect a battery. At upstream kernel 5.4, the battery got detected but never went under 100%. If the laptop was booted plugged in to the adapter, a lightning symbol was displayed next to the battery, but when disconnected from the charger, I won't disappear. Apparently Ubuntu has no idea how to read out these values from the battery.

Several solutions found on the web were applied without a change of behavior.

My system is dual-booted with Windows 10. The battery status is correctly shown in Windows.

Secure boot is disabled.

:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
Release: 20.04

:~$ uname -r
5.10.2-051002-generic

:~$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status
cat: /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status: No such file or directory

:~$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state
cat: /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state: No such file or directory

:~$ sudo apt-cache policy acpi
acpi:
  Installed: 1.7-1.1
  Candidate: 1.7-1.1
  Version table:
 *** 1.7-1.1 500
        500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ACPI related errors from :~$ sudo dmesg

[ 0.229692] ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_TZ.ETMD], AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (20200925/dswload2-326)
[ 0.229715] ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20200925/psobject-220)
[ 1.213005] battery: ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery absent)
[ 1.214643] hpet_acpi_add: no address or irqs in _CRS
[ 1.486160] acpi PNP0C14:02: duplicate WMI GUID 05901221-D566-11D1-B2F0-00A0C9062910 (first instance was on PNP0C14:01)
[ 1.486227] acpi PNP0C14:03: duplicate WMI GUID 05901221-D566-11D1-B2F0-00A0C9062910 (first instance was on PNP0C14:01)
[ 1.486457] acpi PNP0C14:04: duplicate WMI GUID 05901221-D566-11D1-B2F0-00A0C9062910 (first instance was on PNP0C14:01)
[ 1.503599] usb: port power management may be unreliable

Non-ACPI related errors from :~$ sudo dmesg

[ 0.898737] pci 0000:00:07.0: DPC: RP PIO log size 0 is invalid
[ 1.486596] wmi_bus wmi_bus-PNP0C14:04: WQBJ data block query control method not found
[ 1.614067] i2c_hid i2c-SYNA328E:00: supply vdd not found, using dummy regulator
[ 1.614099] i2c_hid i2c-SYNA328E:00: supply vddl not found, using dummy regulator
[ 1.709308] i801_smbus 0000:00:1f.4: Timeout waiting for interrupt!
[ 1.709312] i801_smbus 0000:00:1f.4: Transaction timeout
[ 1.711424] i801_smbus 0000:00:1f.4: Failed terminating the transaction
[ 1.711525] i801_smbus 0000:00:1f.4: SMBus is busy, can't use it!
[ 1.756903] thunderbolt 0000:00:0d.2: 0: uid crc8 mismatch (expected: 0x8e, got: 0xe7)
[ 2.095956] thunderbolt 0000:00:0d.3: 0: uid crc8 mismatch (expected: 0x0, got: 0xdb)
[ 3.866634] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-Qu-c0-hr-b0-49.ucode failed with error -2
[ 4.255298] thermal thermal_zone8: failed to read out thermal zone (-61)
[ 5.469973] hp_wmi: query 0x4c returned error 0x6

Remarkable info's from :~$ sudo dmesg

[ 3.757921] acer_wmi: Acer Laptop ACPI-WMI Extras
-- I'm on a HP laptop

GRUB kernel parameters: ""

Kernel params already tried with no change of behavior:

- acpi=force
- acpi_osi=Windows
- acpi_osi=Linux
- pci=nocrs

BIOS settings already tried with no change of behavior:
- Enabled "Battery remaining time"

Hardware:
HP ENVY - 13-aq1006nb
with latest BIOS version F13 rev. A

Attachments:
- full dmesg (line 1)
- lshw (line 1144)
- lspci (line 1684)
- upower --dump (line 1712)

This bug is apported using:
:~$ ubuntu-bug acpi

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: acpi 1.7-1.1
Uname: Linux 5.10.2-051002-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.14
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Dec 23 18:11:43 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-12-22 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200731)
SourcePackage: acpi
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Rob Nickmans (nickmansrob)]

UPDATE: after committing some further research, I discovered other Linux distro's also suffer from this bug. Turns out HP's BIOS is locked and users are unable to let it report battery statuses to non-Windows operating systems.

A possible solution is using the distro without the battery indicator, and plug in the charger based on the side LED which starts to blink at 10%. Another option I used is enable WSL with a GUI or working with virtualization. This way, the battery status can be checked through Windows.

Waiting for an official response from HP, as a reaction to several complaints from their customers, or a BIOS update enabling the ability of battery status reporting. Until then, I will use WSL as temporary workaround.