[jaunty] screen brightness dims on AC power despite config to leave at 100%

Bug #355180 reported by Gavin McCullagh
24
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-power
New
Undecided
Unassigned
gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager

I have a Dell Latitude D410 laptop running the latest testing version of Jaunty.

While I'm typing here, I have the laptop on AC power. I find the screen keeps dimming down to about 60%. I then use the hotkey to brighten the screen up again. Within a minute or two it has dimmed back down again.

The power management settings "On AC power" are set to

 Put computer to sleep when inactive: Never
 When laptop is closed: blank screen
 Put display to sleep when inactive for: 15 minutes
 Set display brightness to: 100%
 Dim display when idle: unchecked

"On Battery Power":

 Put computer to sleep when inactive: Never
 When laptop is closed: blank screen
 When battery power is critically low: Shutdown
 Put display to sleep when inactive for: 11 minutes
 Reduce backlight brightness: checked
 Dim display when idle: checked

The gnome tray applet confirms that I do have AC power on.

This problem is consistently irritating. I'm in a bright room and really need the full backlight.

gavinmc@bambi:~$ apt-cache policy gnome-power-manager
gnome-power-manager:
  Installed: 2.24.2-2ubuntu7
  Candidate: 2.24.2-2ubuntu7
  Version table:
 *** 2.24.2-2ubuntu7 0
        500 http://ie.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
gavinmc@bambi:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu jaunty (development branch)
Release: 9.04

Revision history for this message
Gavin McCullagh (gmccullagh) wrote :

Oops. I may have jumped the gun on this. I was running an upgrade as I typed and the above versions are post-upgrade. Since the reboot, I'm not seeing the issue.

This may be fixed already.

Gavin

Revision history for this message
Scott Howard (showard314) wrote :

Thanks for the report, I'm just following up to see if this is still an issue.

Changed in gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Rob Frohne (frohro) wrote :

I have this issue with a Dell D610 (big brother to the D410). How did it get fixed for the Dell D410?

Rob

Revision history for this message
Rob Frohne (frohro) wrote :

By the way, my gnome-power-manager is 2.24.2-2ubuntu8.

Rob

Revision history for this message
Gavin McCullagh (gmccullagh) wrote :

I don't think it is fixed to be honest. The problem is a bit intermittent, but I'm pretty certain I still see it.

Revision history for this message
Scott Howard (showard314) wrote :

Thanks for the comments. We'll need some more information before sending this upstream. Please try the following:

GNOME Power Manager Verbose Trace (This will turn on verbose debugging for GNOME Power Manager.)

1) Enter the following into the terminal:
killall gnome-power-manager
gnome-power-manager --no-daemon --verbose
2) work on your computer until the bug appears, then report what is shown in the terminal (some text should appear around the same time the bug shows itself as well as when you increase the brightness to fix it).

Reason (/var/log/messages) information (This will return the reason GNOME Power Manager did a specific action.)

1) Work until you see the bug then enter the following in to the terminal:
cat /var/log/message | grep gnome-power-manager
2) report the output here

Revision history for this message
@joeross (joeross) wrote :

could not produce second output, but found the following while watching the gnome-power-manager in verbose mode:

TI:14:57:58 TH:0x24e4a00 FI:gpm-backlight.c FN:conf_key_changed_cb,501
 - unknown key /apps/gnome-power-manager/backlight/brightness_ac

I'm not well-versed in code, but "unkown key" doesn't sound very good

any thoughts? entire output attached as txt.

Revision history for this message
xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Hi guys, thank you for reporting this and providing the information This issue should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Lucid Lynx. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/.
If it is still a problem, please execute the following command, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:

apport-collect 355180

This will help us to find and resolve the problem. Bear in mind that you may need to install the python-launchpadlib package from the universe repository. Additionally, when prompted to give apport-collect permissions for Launchpad you will need to give it at least the ability to "Change Non-Private" data as it will be adding information to your bug report. You can do this within the Live CD environment. Thanks in advance!

Revision history for this message
craptree (craptree) wrote :

Exact same problem here with Dell Mini 9 on AC power with i945GME chipset. Tested on jaunty with stock and 2.6.32 upgraded kernel (from lucid).

Revision history for this message
xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Thank you, but can someone please test this in Lucid? You can use a LiveCD so it's just a case of download and run it. This may have been fixed, hence the need for the testing phase.

Revision history for this message
xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

Changed in gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Faruk (faruk-kasumovic-gmail) wrote :

This bug needs to reopen for ubuntu 10.10 amd64, installed by upgrading 10.04.
I can confirm this happens all the time on HP 550 Notebook.
Running gnome-power-manager in verbose mode shows

TI:23:38:21 TH:0x247b0a0 FI:gpm-backlight.c FN:gpm_backlight_brightness_evaluate_and_set,357
 - Key 232 mapped to key brightness-down
 - emitting button-pressed : brightness-down
 - Button press event type=brightness-down
 - Button press event type=brightness-down

So, when ever ac power is reconnected it triggers brightness-down.
Reproducible always.
There no other info I can find, that can be related to this.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Changed in gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu):
status: Invalid → New
Revision history for this message
Pedro Villavicencio (pedro) wrote :

Thanks for the report, it has been some time without any response or feedback in this bug report and we are wondering if this is still an issue for you with the latest release of Ubuntu the Natty Narwhal, May you please test with that version and comment back if you're still having or not the issue? Please have a look at http://www.ubuntu.com/download to know how to install that version.Thanks in advance and sorry for the late response.

Changed in gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Low
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
quazi (rajibcse) wrote :

I use a Lenovo Y560 on Natty Narwhal. And I see this issue every time. Basically even if I set the brightness to 80-100% after a few seconds the brightness will automatically dim to 10-20%. Sometimes after the dim, the brightness will randomly go up again (without manual intervention).

This is on a fully active computer on AC power . So dim when idle should not take effect anyway. I have tried all possible combinations with gnome-power-manager e.g. disabling the dim when idle check box, setting default brightness to a lower level etc.

Please let me know if you need further information. I do not consider myself as an expert ubuntu user, but if you can tell me how to get those information I can surely try to do it. This problem is annoying as hell.

quazi (rajibcse)
Changed in gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Opinion
status: Opinion → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Tim S (timss) wrote :

I don't think this bug is unique for Ubuntu. I got the exact same error with Gnome 3.2 on my Arch Linux. Can't find any fix, tempfix on gconf or anything else. Really annoying. Only occurs with AC-power.

Revision history for this message
Tim S (timss) wrote :

Since I couldn't find out a way to edit my comment above I had to post another one;
It seems as if it doesn't care if it's with or without AC-power. Same behavior.

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