[lucid] Broken backlight control with Radeon open-source drivers

[Dana Goyette]

Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager

With the deprecation of hal, gnome-power-manager must rely on the BACKLIGHT property in xrandr; however, the ATI open-source drivers seem not to support this property (regardless of whether KMS is enabled).

With HAL removed, g-p-m does not offer brightness controls at all. Additionally, even if I reinstall HAL, the backlight control still does not work -- upon pressing the brightness control keys, notify-OSD shows the slider at a fixed value, but the slider does not move.

I have attached (originally to bug 38057915 ) a log of gnome-power-manager --verbose: http://launchpadlibrarian.net/38057915/g-p-m.log -- Note that gnome-power-manager seems to be repeatedly setting the same brightness level with each keypress.

The Gnome brightness panel applet also behaves strangely: sometimes it works, and sometimes it displays "Cannot get laptop panel brightness".

I am using Lucid with xorg-edgers, currently booted into kernel-ppa 2.6.33, but this issue also occurs with normal Lucid packages.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Mar 8 13:17:10 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: gnome-power-manager 2.29.91-0ubuntu4
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-power-manager
Uname: Linux 2.6.33-996-generic x86_64
---
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
GnomeSessionIdleInhibited: No
GnomeSessionInhibitors: None
GnomeSessionSuspendInhibited: No
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP EliteBook 8530w
Package: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.191+git20100314.67e81c8f-0ubuntu0sarvatt
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.33-996-generic root=UUID=538e1c30-c976-4363-ae30-eaaa7704dbe0 ro vga16fb.DoNotWant=1 acpi_osi="!Windows 2009" pciehp.pciehp_debug=1 console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 radeon.dynclks=1 radeon.modeset=1 radeon.dynpm=1 quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Tags: lucid lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.33-996-generic x86_64
UnreportableReason: This is not a genuine Ubuntu package
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin netdev plugdev sambashare vboxusers
dmi.bios.date: 12/08/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68PDV Ver. F.11
dmi.board.name: 30E7
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 90.26
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68PDVVer.F.11:bd12/08/2009:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPEliteBook8530w:pvrF.11:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn30E7:rvrKBCVersion90.26:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP EliteBook 8530w
dmi.product.version: F.11
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: x86_64
 kernel: 2.6.33-996-generic

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a40] (rev 07)
     Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:30e7]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc Mobility Radeon HD 3650 [1002:9591]
     Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:3604]

[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

To clarify, there are two interacting bugs here: One is that Radeon doesn't support BACKLIGHT, and the other is that the old HAL-based way no longer works. The preferred action would be to fix the former, rather than the latter.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command in a terminal after reproducing the issue, and it it will automatically gather debugging information needed for this bug:

  apport-collect 534677

Also, we've recently backported the drm from 2.6.33. This solved a lot of bugs, but since you indicated you tested the 2.6.33 kernel already, I assume you're still finding this problem on latest lucid. However if you've not re-tested with the lucid kernel it might be worth the trouble just to be sure.

[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

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[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi Dana, okay, radeontool might be useful in debugging this. After installing it, you run it like this:

    radeontool regmatch '*' > regdump_good.txt

    radeontool regmatch '*' > regdump_broke.txt

Run it two times. Once when you have a good, working screen (for any driver including -vesa), and once in the broken case (either from the tty console or logged into the sick box remotely).

[Erni35 (dczekay)]

I have the same issue on a HP 6735b with ATI RS780 on lucid running 2.6.32 and 2.6.34-rc

Kindly Erni35

[bodwick (bodwick)]

On HP ProBook 4710s (ati hd4330 with fglrx driver) I have a similar problem:
- can't control the lcd backlight using gnome-power-manager
- can't control the lcd backlight using xbacklight
- CAN change the backlight using 'echo -n 0 > /proc/acpi/video/DGFX/LCD/brightness'
- when switching to battery the screen gets dimmer
- function keys which used to control backlight don't work any more (used to work out of the box on Karmic)

Best regards
Szymon

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[Resetting to incomplete. Erni, we don't need 'me-toos', we need information that will assist in troubleshooting this problem.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.

[diaz8 (diaz8)]

Hi,

I have this bug too. Please, tell me what information is needed and the steps to obtain it.

Regards.

[dmatt (martind)]

I have this bug (turning brightness up and down with Fn F10 and Fn F9 does not work) on both up-to-date ubuntu with fglrx and kubuntu with opensource driver on HP 6930p with ATI 3450.
radeontool regmatch '*' produces on both systems only this:

mapping ctrl region

without any other messages.
I was testing lucid from alpha 3 and this never worked for me. Turning light sensor on and off (Fn F11) works.

[bodwick (bodwick)]

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
GnomeSessionIdleInhibited: No
GnomeSessionInhibitors: None
GnomeSessionSuspendInhibited: No
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP ProBook 4710s
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: gnome-power-manager 2.30.0-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic root=UUID=c951d765-665e-4204-9877-df89df12c696 ro quiet splash acpi_osi=Linux
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=pl_PL.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout disk lpadmin netdev plugdev sambashare www-data
dmi.bios.date: 08/03/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68PZI Ver. F.0A
dmi.board.name: 3074
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 24.0C
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CNU9346TS7
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68PZIVer.F.0A:bd08/03/2009:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPProBook4710s:pvrF.0A:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn3074:rvrKBCVersion24.0C:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP ProBook 4710s
dmi.product.version: F.0A
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard

[bodwick (bodwick)]

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[bodwick (bodwick)]

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[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

It looks like radeontool fails silently, instead of telling the user to run it under sudo. I also had to escape the asterisk to pass it to radeontool:
sudo radeontool match \*

Here's my radeontool output on 2.6.34-rc5 kernel from kernel-ppa -- this is the "broken" case.

I can't seem to recall a time it ever did work with the open-source drivers (either UMS or KMS).

[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

More correctly, I can't remember _whether_ it ever worked before.

[Telic (z180)]

Dana, the fn-key problem that you describe here also appeared when I went from Karmic to Lucid on my HP ProBook 4510s, which has an ATI Mobility Radeon HD-4330. The fn-key problem disappeared after I installed ATI Catalyst Display Driver version 10.6, which I downloaded from the AMD support site.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

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.

[Dana Goyette (danagoyette)]

This is still true with the Radeon driver in Natty. There's no BACKLIGHT property exposed on the LVDS interface.

Gnome Power Manager itself now works around it, with gnome-backlight-helper.
KDE also now somehow works around it, as well.

So, the user-facing portion is fixed, but the original problem (missing BACKLIGHT property) still exists.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-power-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]