[Intrepid] No on-screen display for volume or brightness control on Thinkpad T60

[Steve Dee]

Binary package hint: acpi

In Intrepid, though my volume and brightness keys do still control volume and brightness, they no longer give any visible response on-screen. That is, while I can still raise, lower, or mute the volume with the hardware volume buttons, no change is registered by the volume applet; it does not visually identify itself as muted when muted, nor does its level change when the actual volume is changed. There is no onscreen volume display either, and what's more, xev doesn't register volume keypresses.

With brightness, there is again no onscreen display or indication (aside from the brightness actually changing); however, xev does register keypresses, as shown in the attachment.

I'm reporting this as an ACPI issue; however, I'm not sure where the true problem lies.

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

Did this function properly in hardy or has it never worked?

[Steve Dee (mrdomino)]

It functioned properly in Hardy.

[Katsudon (katsudon)]

Same for Thinkpad R61i (worked fine with Hardy).

[Katsudon (katsudon)]

i forgot to mention: I was testing so far only in the KDE session.

[Matt Ziegelbaum (mziegelbaum)]

I can confirm this in Intrepid on both a T43p and a T41. Both worked in Hardy. There is no ACPI event being generated for these keys in addition to xev getting no input from them.

[Colin Stark (cstark)]

Confirmed on Intrepid on an R51. This worked properly in Hardy and stopped working as soon as I upgraded to Intrepid. I'm not sure how to check if there is an acpi event or if xev is getting input from them but I can check that if someone provides instructions. Testing in a Gnome session.

[Bart Rose (jbrose3)]

On my R52 the brightness OSD will flash briefly when I switch from AC to battery or back, but not when I change the level with the fn key.

[Dominik Fuchs (d-fuchs)]

Confirmed on Intrepid on Z61t. Was working under Hardy.

[wolfie2x (wolfie2x)]

Volume OSD works but brightness OSD doesn't work with Fn key (worked fine in Hardy). DELL Inspiron 9400.

[Daniel Kończyk (drmartens)]

Well, my case is an opposite to the one reported by wolfie2x.
I have a Thinkpad T60 and brightness OSD works fine, no OSD for volume keys though (worked fine on hardy), but the keys do the job, so it's only OSD issue...

[Matt Ziegelbaum (mziegelbaum)]

After last update, some changes! ACPI events are generated for all keys, they're just mapped poorly now.

Brightness up/down shows the pop up now. Thats fine.

Volume down: ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001016 (mapped to XF86AudioStop)
Volume up: ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001015 (mapped to XF86AudioRewind)
Volume mute: ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001017 (mapped to XF86ScreenSaver)

Access IBM: ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001018 (mapped to XF86Launch1 -- success!)

The rest of the keys all seem fine. This is on a T43p, evdev keyboard.

[wolfie2x (wolfie2x)]

after yesterday night (2008-10-15) updates, screen brightness OSD was visible but very buggy.

When brightness increase/decrease keys (Fn+up/down arrows) are pressed even only once, the brightness increases/decreases continuously until it's max/min (like the keys are stuck). Afterwards the desktop simply doesn't work properly; windows can't be moved; console doesn't get the focus when clicked; keyboard doesn't work. Logging out and back in again brings things back to normal.

DELL Inspiron 9400;
gnome desktop.
Linux wolfie-laptop 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Tue Oct 14 18:40:44 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

xev output attached.

[Dominik Fuchs (d-fuchs)]

After the latest updates (16-Oct-2008) the problem now seems solved for my system, Intrepid on Thinkpad Z61t.

[wolfie2x (wolfie2x)]

problem still remains after latest updates (17-Oct-08).
(same as described in my previous post: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/acpi/+bug/272292/comments/13 )

[Jonathan Blackhall (johnny-one-eye)]

I just upgraded to Intrepid last night (on a T61). For me, the brightness OSD is displaying correctly, however I'm moving 2 steps (up or down) for each button press. Is anyone else having this issue? When I tried the brightness buttons on the Intrepid Beta live CD, they correctly moved only 1 step for each button press. Please let me know if you think I should open a separate issue.

[Daniel Kończyk (drmartens)]

I confirm what Jonathan reported - on Thinkpad T60 - it worked fine a few days ago...
Also, a recent update (probably Oct. 24th) broke the sound keys again...Now, OSD for the volume down/up keys works, but pushing these keys not only changes the sound volume, but also stops a playing stream in totem! I'm 100% sure it worked ok before, because I listen to the streams everyday and use those keys when the phone rings etc.
Additionally, the third button - "sound off" key - locks the screen now (same as System->Lock Screen). When I push it, screen locks and the window to input a password shows immediatelly...It also worked before, just OSD was gone.

[Daniel Kończyk (drmartens)]

Sorry, the "volume up" key works OK, only "volume down" stops the playing stream.

[Gregory Oschwald (osch0001)]

I am also experiencing the problem with volume down on my Thinkpad X60s. Further, the mute button locks my X display. Also, the media control function keys no longer work with Rythmbox. All of these keys worked fine in Hardy and earlier releases.

[lemonidas (lgaryfallos)]

I have the same problem on a Toshiba U300.

Linux leonidas-laptop 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Thu Oct 30 04:18:38 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux
Upgraded today to 8.10

The brightness buttons work but no OSD appears (except once but never again since then).
The volume goes up to full or empty when I touch the volume dial, and the OSD keeps flashing and the PC freezes. Almost nothing works and only a logout will fix things.

Other buttons (e.g. the browser button) are remapped, but I don't know if it's relevant.

Everything worked fine on 8.04

[lemonidas (lgaryfallos)]

ok, I changed the keys for volume from the XF86 ones to "Ctrl-Shift-!" and "Ctrl-Shift-@" respectively and the volume now works, OSD ok, no freeze, and strangely the brightness OSD now appears. Still this is a downgrade compared to 8.04...

[Martin Dederer (martindederer)]

Pressing the volume-up, volume-down and the mute buttons, in addition to controlling the volume and muting, triggers the screensaver on my thinkpad r51.

This is happening on intrepid ibex final upgraded from hardy.

[jmachado (joaquim-machado)]

I have the same problem lemonidas.

My problem:
The volume goes up to full or empty when I touch the volume dial, and the OSD keeps flashing and the keyboard gets disabled/freezes, but the mouse works.
Everything worked fine on 8.04.
This is a fresh install of 8.10.

My hardware and software:
Toshiba U300-130
Linux jmachado-ubuntu 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Tue Nov 4 19:33:20 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

[jmachado (joaquim-machado)]

But I don't think our problem is related to the original.
Should we open another instance/bug?

[Chris Bainbridge (chris-bainbridge)]

The original bug is possibly a dupe of bug #267682 or #51537.

The volume-down stopping playback is a dupe of bug #294400

[Andy Walker (walkeraj)]

I can confirm on a thinkpad x31. Brightness keys and volume keys work, but only brightness keys bring up the OSD.

[Ruben Stoll (rubenstoll)]

I have a thinkpad t42 and a new intrepid ibex ubuntu 8.10 installation done on 12/24/2008.

Volume up/down/mute and all others were working beautifully. I installed the tpd package a 3 day ago. OSD and volume control was still working fine.

Somewhere in between something happened ... no more OSD for volume up/down/mute nor brightness. Volume keys and function keys no longer trigger an event in the event tester. I did something similar like user lemonidas did - changed the keyboard shortcut for the volume button from XF86AudioUp to something like Ctrl+U and this brought my volume up button back to life. I assume that if i do this for the rest it will work as well.

I assume it must have been an update of one of the packages that came in on my system. Is there a way to check which packages were updated last?

[Ruben Stoll (rubenstoll)]

I must retract my problem report, partially. I removed the tpd package and re-installed the hotkey-setup package. This solved my problem. All keys(volume up/down/mute and brightness up/down) working with OSD. I guess it is that tpd package or something else.

[ikus060 (ikus060-renamed)]

Hi Ruben Stoll,

May you provide the version of each package (hotkey-setup and tpd).
Thanks

[Ruben Stoll (rubenstoll)]

Hi
sorry for the late reply. I am sorry, but I cannot provide you with the versions for each. The versions for each must be the versions that come with a fresh install of ubuntu 8.10. That is all I can say.

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 now and the tpd works now. The default OSD never worked in a fresh install. Dunno why. That is why i had to install the tpd package using the Synaptic Package Manger to see some OSD. Don't ask me the versions because I don't know them either. Default versions that are found on a Ubuntu 9.04 install. I gave my laptop away running great!

hope that helps. cheers ....