No brightness controls and /sys/class/backlight empty after upgrade to Bionic on laptop with GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile (kernel parameter acpi_osi= is a workaround)

[Brady Garvin]

This is a case of "Backlight control does not work, and there are no entries in /sys/class/backlight" for what lspci reports as "NVIDIA Corporation GP106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile] (rev a1)" where the kernel parameter acpi_osi= is a workaround. (The workaround is also recorded on Ask Ubuntu at https://askubuntu.com/questions/1030526/brightness-on-laptop-msi-gt72vr-in-ubuntu-18-04-with-nvidia-gtx-1060-mobile-does/1043598#1043598.)

The problem is new for me after upgrade to Bionic, although the cause might be the corresponding update to the NVIDIA drivers.

I will add attachments following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Debugging/Backlight, though most of them seem to be uninteresting. If I can provide further information, please let me know.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: linux-image-4.15.0-22-generic 4.15.0-22.24
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-22.24-generic 4.15.17
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-22-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Mon Jun 4 14:20:34 2018
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: linux-signed
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-06-04 (0 days ago)
---
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.1
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: bgarvin 2442 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: bgarvin 2442 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=1b60cccb-eea7-4d0b-a32b-97d236a5177f
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04f2:b5a7 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp.
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 1c7a:0603 LighTuning Technology Inc.
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: System76, Inc. Oryx Pro
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 EFI VGA
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-22-generic root=UUID=557ebdfc-3380-4721-a494-65c34cb70b2f ro i8042.nomux i8042.reset acpi_osi=
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-22.24-generic 4.15.17
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-4.15.0-22-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-4.15.0-22-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.173.1
Tags: bionic
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-22-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-06-04 (1 days ago)
UserGroups: adm lpadmin sambashare sudo vboxusers
_MarkForUpload: True
dmi.bios.date: 09/08/2016
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1.05.03RSA
dmi.board.asset.tag: Tag 12345
dmi.board.name: Oryx Pro
dmi.board.vendor: System76, Inc.
dmi.board.version: oryp2
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: System76, Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr1.05.03RSA:bd09/08/2016:svnSystem76,Inc.:pnOryxPro:pvroryp2:rvnSystem76,Inc.:rnOryxPro:rvroryp2:cvnSystem76,Inc.:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.family: Not Applicable
dmi.product.name: Oryx Pro
dmi.product.version: oryp2
dmi.sys.vendor: System76, Inc.

[Brady Garvin (bgarvin)]

Although step 3 at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Debugging/Backlight asks for the output of ls /sys/class/backlight, it gives no output, so I do not include an attachment. Steps 9, 10, and 12–16 either cause no changes or do not apply. Step 11, as noted, is a workaround.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Did this issue start happening after an update/upgrade? Was there a prior kernel version where you were not having this particular problem?

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest v4.17 kernel[0].

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tag 'kernel-fixed-upstream'.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the tag: 'kernel-bug-exists-upstream'.

Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug as "Confirmed".

Thanks in advance.

[0] http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.17

[Brady Garvin (bgarvin)]

Yes, this was after an upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) from Ubuntu 17.10.1 (Artful Aardvark).

I will test with the latest upstream kernel.

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. While running an Ubuntu kernel (not a mainline or third-party kernel) please enter the following command in a terminal window:

apport-collect 1775065

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Brady Garvin (bgarvin)]

Yes, this was after an upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) from Ubuntu 17.10.1 (Artful Aardvark).

The bug is fixed in the mainline kernel; I have added the appropriate tag and marked the bug as confirmed.

[Brady Garvin (bgarvin)]

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[Brady Garvin (bgarvin)]

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[Fábio Carvalho (fmac)]

I have an Omen by HP 15-dc0015np. This device have the same insue but only have a nvidia card, so doens't support to use intel video card to fix temporaly backlight. The solution above doens't work on me and use acpi_osi= or acpi_backlight=vendor or acpi_backlight=video or acpi_osi=! acpi_osi='Windows 2015' or acpi=off. Regards.

[Juan Manuel Diaz (juanchomdiaz)]

Hi! I have an Omen by HP 15-ce004la with NVIDIA GTX1060 Q-MAX and the bug is still present.

This is my setup:

Ubuntu 18.04 with kernel 4.18.13-041813-generic

I'am getting acpi errors like this one below in boot time too:

[ 0.104082] ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating [\_SB.PCI0.XHC.RHUB.GPLD], AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (20180531/dswload2-316)

My /sys/class/backlight folder is empty, but xbacklight works.

I am using latest Nvidia propietary driver.

Regards and hope you can solve this soon.

JM

[Mario Sánchez Prada (mariospr)]

I can confirm this very same problem in my laptop, which is a Thinkpad P1 with a Xeon E-2176M and hybrid Intel / NVIDIA card working in "Discreet" mode (that is, only the NVIDIA card is enabled) using the proprietary NVIDIA driver installed via the nvidia-driver-390 package (390.87-0ubuntu1).

The NVIDIA card is a Quadro P2000 Mobile according to lspci:

  01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP107GLM [Quadro P2000 Mobile] (rev a1)

I'm currently in Ubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish with kernel 4.18.0-10:

$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 18.10"
VERSION_ID="18.10"
HOME_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://help.ubuntu.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy"
VERSION_CODENAME=cosmic
UBUNTU_CODENAME=cosmic

$ uname -ar
Linux rosmon 4.18.0-10-generic #11-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 11 15:13:55 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

And just to confirm, what I'm seeing is this:

1. Pressing the media keys for brightness cause not visible effect (no brightness change), with errors showing up in the journal:

  oct 23 11:37:47 rosmon gsd-media-keys[2532]: Failed to set new screen percentage: GDBus.Error:org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._gsd_5fpower_5fmanager_5ferror.Code0: Screen backlight not available
  oct 23 11:37:47 rosmon gsd-media-keys[2532]: Failed to set new screen percentage: GDBus.Error:org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._gsd_5fpower_5fmanager_5ferror.Code0: Screen backlight not available

2. Installing xbacklight allows me to effectively change the brightness from the command line (e.g. `xbacklight -set 50`, `xbacklight -inc 10`...)

3. The /sys/class/backlight directory is empty, suggesting that the ACPI interface was not initialize, which I believe is why the media keys don't work and throw that error in the journal (media keys -> gsd-media-keys -> gsd-power-manager -> GUDev -> /sys/class/backlight ACPI interface):

  $ ls -l /sys/class/backlight/
  total 0

4. Booting with acpi_osi= or acpi_osi=Linux causes the /sys/class/backlight directory to be populated with a thinkpad_backlight directory, and the media keys to respond showing the OSD for the brightness, but does not change brightness at all when used:

  a. The brightness bar is always shown at "random" values between 0 and ~20%
  b. /sys/class/backlight/thinkpad_backlight/actual_brightness is always 0

Also, in this setup where /sys/class/backlight/ is not empty, xbacklight does NOT work.

I hope this is helpful, as it's kind of annoying to have to use xbacklight to change brithgness. I was myself looking into a fix for this, but I can't figure out whether this should be fixed in the NVIDIA driver, some kernel module or somewhere else, so I figured I'd comment here and hope for the best.

PS: I can do more tests if needed. Thanks!

[reinhard zufall (reini18)]

Got a similar problem on a HP Zbook G5. I have 2 graphics cards: Intel + Nvidia.
I use the Nvidia proprietary drivers 415. The difference in my case is that I have an entry in "/sys/class/backlight", namely: "intel_backlight" and that I can control the display brightness using the gnome GUI slider, but also my backlight hotkeys are not working and none of the following kernel parameters solved the issue:
    "acpi_backlight=vendor"
    "acpi_backlight=video"
    "acpi_backlight=video0"
    "acpi_backlight=none"
    "acpi_osi=Linux"
Since many people are experiencing this annoying bug, it would really be great if it could be solved.
Anyhow, thanks for any of your efforts to solve this issue!

[reinhard zufall (reini18)]

Forgot my setup infos:
######################
lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic

dmidecode:
System Information
 Manufacturer: HP
 Product Name: HP ZBook 15 G5
uname -a:
4.15.0-39-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 23 15:48:01 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[vairamuthu (vairamuthusky)]

I'm also facing same issue in Ubuntu 18.04.
Manufacturer: HP Omen
Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX 1060

Even workaround also not solving problem. Please fix this issue ASAP, because most of them facing same issue.

[PKRakesh (rakeshkrishnanivas)]

I have bought a new laptop and downloaded the latest LTS version of Ubuntu. When I tried to install the dual boot for the first time, it failed, then after adding "nomodeset" to the grub menu I managed to install the same. But after installation there is no gui brightness control as well as the brightness button is not working. I tried a lot of methods to fix this, but none worked. Bellow is my system info:

System: Host: pkrakesh-HP-Pavilion-Gaming-Laptop-15-cx0xxx Kernel: 4.15.0-43-generic x86_64
           bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Gnome 3.28.2 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1) dm: gdm3
           Distro: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Machine: Device: laptop System: HP product: HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15-cx0xxx v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: N/A
           Mobo: HP model: 8478 v: 70.39 serial: N/A
           UEFI: Insyde v: F.11 date: 08/13/2018
           Chassis: type: 10 serial: N/A
Battery BAT1: charge: 48.7 Wh 96.0% condition: 50.8/52.8 Wh (96%)
           volts: 13.2/11.6
           model: Hewlett-Packard PABAS0241231 serial: 41167 status: Charging
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5-8300H (-MT-MCP-) arch: Skylake rev.10
           speed/max: 900/4000 MHz
Graphics: Card-1: Intel Device 3e9b bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3e9b
           Card-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile]
           bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1c8d
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
           drivers: fbdev (unloaded: modesetting,vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@77.00hz
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 256 bits)
           version: 3.3 Mesa 18.0.5 (compat-v: 3.0) Direct Render: Yes
Network: Card-1: Intel Device a370
           driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:a370
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCIE Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 3000
           bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
Drives: HDD Total Size: 1000.2GB (0.8% used)
Info: Processes: 309 Uptime: 20 min Memory: 1738.6/7865.9MB
           Init: systemd v: 237 runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: N/A
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191 running in gnome-terminal-) inxi: 2.3.56
-------------------------------------

And my grub looks likes this:

System: Host: pkrakesh-HP-Pavilion-Gaming-Laptop-15-cx0xxx Kernel: 4.15.0-43-generic x86_64
           bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Gnome 3.28.2 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1) dm: gdm3
           Distro: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Machine: Device: laptop System: HP product: HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15-cx0xxx v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: N/A
           Mobo: HP model: 8478 v: 70.39 serial: N/A
           UEFI: Insyde v: F.11 date: 08/13/2018
           Chassis: type: 10 serial: N/A
Battery BAT1: charge: 48.7 Wh 96.0% condition: 50.8/52.8 Wh (96%)
           volts: 13.2/11.6
           model: Hewlett-Packard PABAS0241231 serial: 41167 status: Charging
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5-8300H (-MT-MCP-) arch: Skylake rev.10
           speed/max: 900/4000 MHz
Graphics: Card-1: Intel Device 3e9b bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3e9b
           Card-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile]
           bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1c8d
           Display Se...

[PKRakesh (rakeshkrishnanivas)]

Sorry,

The grub file is:

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset quiet splash acpi_backlight=video acpi_osi=Linux"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"