[Gutsy] guidance-power-manager hangs unless I restart HAL

[Luis Alberto Pabón]

Binary package hint: hal

After KDE is started, if I right-click on the guidance-p-m applet I can suspend, change CPU policy, etc. However, if I left-click on the applet to bring up the main screen, the applet freezes and consumes 100% of my CPU power. I think it is related to the screen brightness setting, for all that area appears sort of empty (please see screenshot). Also, unplugging the laptop from the main power does not have an effect on screen brightness.

Now, this happens again if I kill the applet and start it again. But if I restart HAL, the applet works perfectly, screen brightness dims fine when unplugging or moving the sliders, etc.

Bug #140966 is somehow related to this one.

Up to date Kubuntu Gutsy on a Sony VAIO VGN-FS285M.

[Luis Alberto Pabón (copong)]

I've recorded a video... Theora compression:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T1845P3Q that'll be better than my own
explanation of the problem.

On 27/09/2007, Brian Murray <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> ** Also affects: kde-guidance (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided
> Status: New
>
> --
> [Gutsy] guidance-power-manager hangs unless I restart HAL
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/145611
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Luis Pabón

[Martin (martin-zdila)]

i report the same problem for ThinkPad Z60m
process that eats CPU is /usr/bin/python /usr/share/python-support/kde-guidance-powermanager/guidance-power-manager.py
attaching strace output

[Martin (martin-zdila)]

i've found out that guidance-power-manager works CORRECTLY with linux-image-2.6.20-16-lowlatency. the problem arises with linux-image-2.6.22-12-generic.

[Luis Alberto Pabón (copong)]

I have tried the -rt kernel and the problem is still there (just chose a different kernel at random). However guidance-p-m doesn't hang with this kernel, it won't show any "brightness levels" on the sliders unless HAL is restarted.

[Luka Renko (lure)]

Can you attach output of "lshal" and "dmesg" commands?

[Luis Alberto Pabón (copong)]

Sure. This is lshal's output before hal restart.

[Luis Alberto Pabón (copong)]

This is lshal's output after I restart hal. There is quite a difference between both files!!!

[Luis Alberto Pabón (copong)]

dmesg's output remains the same after I restart hal.

[Luka Renko (lure)]

This is clearly a bug in HAL. It looks like that HAL sometimes does not properly detect brightness levels, leaving it to huge number, as seen in lshal-before.log:

  laptop_panel.num_levels = 134648572 (0x80692fc) (int)

This confuses guidance-power-manager, which wants to show that many levels of brightness. See also similar bug 139205 and bug 138956

[Luis Alberto Pabón (copong)]

They are indeed similar, they could be even the same bug, couldn't they?

On 10/10/2007, Luka Renko <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> This is clearly a bug in HAL. It looks like that HAL sometimes does not
> properly detect brightness levels, leaving it to huge number, as seen in
> lshal-before.log:
>
> laptop_panel.num_levels = 134648572 (0x80692fc) (int)
>
> This confuses guidance-power-manager, which wants to show that many
> levels of brightness. See also similar bug 139205 and bug 138956
>
>
> ** Changed in: hal (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided => Medium
> Status: New => Confirmed
>
> --
> [Gutsy] guidance-power-manager hangs unless I restart HAL
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/145611
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Luis Pabón

[arni (tobiasheer)]

I have the same problem on Sony Vaio VGN-B1XP

[arni (tobiasheer)]

And lshal

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Confirmed hal problem -> invalidate guidance task.

[dino99 (9d9)]

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/hal/