Laptop mode not enabled on lid closed

[Hanno Stock (hefe_bia)]

I have ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_WHEN_LID_CLOSED=1 but laptop mode is not enabled when I close the lid.
(Display is properly turned off, so ACPI is working.)

I verified that it is not working by running:

hanno@sputnik2:~$ sleep 30 && cat /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode
0

...and closing the lid, so the command is executed during lid closed.

Any hints on how to debug this further?

hanno@sputnik2:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.10
Release: 8.10

(latest updates installed)

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thanks for your report. You say the display is properly turned off, you mean it goes black? That could be a hardware switch turning of the backlight. Or do you get the locked screen (password dialog) when you open it? Can you try:
 sleep 10 && cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state

[Hanno Stock (hefe_bia) (hanno-stock)]

Tormod Volden schrieb:
> Thanks for your report. You say the display is properly turned off, you mean it goes black? That could be a hardware switch turning of the backlight. Or do you get the locked screen (password dialog) when you open it? Can you try:
> sleep 10 && cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state
>

I don't get the locked screen, but:

hanno@sputnik2:~$ sleep 20 && cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state
state: closed

hanno@sputnik2:~$ cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state
state: open

So ACPI works.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

In the old times, the acpid should react on the event defined in /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn and run /etc/acpi/lid.sh. You can verify this by restarting acpid in debug mode:
 sudo pkill ^acpid
 sudo acpid -d
... now close the lid and open it again
Afterwards stop the debug one and restart it normally:
 (ctrl-C)
 sudo acpid

Nowadays, gnome-power-manager is responsible for these things. So /etc/acpi/lid.sh exits because it sees gnome-power-manager running. You can see g-p-m in action like this:
 sudo pkill gnome-power-manager
 sudo gnome-power-manager --no-daemon --verbose
... and close the lid
Restart with
 (ctrl-C)
 sudo gnome-power-manager

However I am not sure how laptop mode is hooked into g-p-m (or should have been) for lid actions.

[Ritesh Raj Sarraf (rrs)]

Looks like you too are affected with the same bug as in: #387057

Can you try the same steps as mentioned there in the comments ?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

This doesn't work because the /etc/acpi/events/lm_lid script has been intentionally removed from the Ubuntu package of laptop-mode-tools.

I'm not sure this is something we want to support. Why would you not simply set a policy of suspending the laptop on lid close, instead of turning on laptop-mode? Which features of laptop-mode-tools are the ones that you're concerned about setting when the lid is closed?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

(Note that acpid itself is considered deprecated in Ubuntu, and will cease to be installed by default once acpi-support is no longer needed.)

[ceg (ceg)]

If the /etc/acpi/events/lm_lid script has been removed from the ubuntu package of laptop-mode-tools (as the laptop-mode-tools are adapted to the invocation by pm-utils used in ubuntu), do pm-tools not provide a replacement hook for the lid closed event?

I wonder because as aunt carry would have said, breaking something by intent and not leaving even a note in the package/config is something we'd stay away from.

[ceg (ceg)]

> Why would you not simply set a policy of suspending the laptop on lid close, instead of turning on laptop-mode?

Because laptop-mode (with all the additional disk idleing features of the laptop-mode-tools) is different from suspending into a unresponsive state.

And doesn't gnome-power provide only a user limited solution instead of a system wide solution and without relying on the well tested and supported code of laptop-mode-tools for disk idleing?

[Gurmeet (gurmeet1109)]

+ me-too on the bug

When the lid on the laptop is closed, only the display gets turned off, not the machine. Everything internally is working.

Expected behavior : On lid close, laptop should suspend with all peripherals, disk, CPU, wireless etc off. On lid open, laptop should Resume normal working behavior. Optionally present a password prompt (if set).

# uname -a
Linux ubnode6 2.6.35-23-server #40-Ubuntu SMP Wed Nov 17 23:31:10 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[ceg (ceg)]

Of course, you want to be able to close the lid and save power but not suspending completely. For example when your laptop is supposed to monitor or control a service or device.

The fix for this is to ship l-m-t with an an appropriate hook for pm-utils that replaces the old acpid hook (/etc/acpi/events/lm_lid).