[i945gme] brightness fluxuates wildly on KMS (karmic)

Bug #381461 reported by Jonathan Reeve
This bug report is a duplicate of:  Bug #415023: brightness is broken on MSI WIND U100. Edit Remove
32
This bug affects 6 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: xorg

After upgrading to karmic and enabling kernel mode setting, I've been having bizarre brightness issues on startup of X. X starts up, the desktop fades in as expected, and then the screen will flicker , as if it's cycling back and forth between through two brightness levels. There is usually a box where the brightness level would be indicated, in its old location (bottom center of the screen) that gets stuck there when this happens. Restarting X usually fixes this, but not always.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu May 28 17:03:04 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: xorg 1:7.4~5ubuntu20
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.30-6.7-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.4~5ubuntu20
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.4.1-1ubuntu1
 libdrm2 2.4.9-2ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.7.1-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.2-1ubuntu1
SourcePackage: xorg
Tags: ubuntu-unr
Uname: Linux 2.6.30-6-generic i686
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 architecture: i686kernel: 2.6.30-6-generic

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Reeve (jon-reeve) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Jonathan Reeve (jon-reeve) wrote :
Download full text (3.2 KiB)

Update: doesn't seem to be specific to KMS, as I think I've been having the same problem with KMS disabled. Also, here are some messages I've been getting, though I'm not sure if they're relevant:

May 30 15:04:48 pia kernel: [ 36.520173] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:04:48 pia kernel: [ 36.804170] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:04:48 pia kernel: [ 37.080175] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:04:52 pia kernel: [ 41.136237] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:05:26 pia kernel: [ 74.736338] gvfs-gdu-volume[4741]: segfault at c ip 0065ffda sp bfdf6c10 error 4 in libgdu.so.0.0.0[657000+22000]
May 30 15:05:38 pia kernel: [ 87.120151] gvfs-gdu-volume[5034]: segfault at c ip 0050bfda sp bfe725b0 error 4 in libgdu.so.0.0.0[503000+22000]
May 30 15:05:44 pia kernel: [ 92.772304] mixer_applet2[4058]: segfault at aaaaaaac ip 00230be2 sp bfaf1a90 error 4 in libglib-2.0.so.0.2100.0[20d000+c3000]
May 30 15:05:46 pia kernel: [ 94.956223] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:05:46 pia kernel: [ 95.240227] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:05:48 pia kernel: [ 96.452239] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:05:51 pia pulseaudio[5334]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
May 30 15:05:53 pia kernel: [ 101.876205] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:05:53 pia kernel: [ 102.156170] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:05:54 pia kernel: [ 102.436207] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:05:57 pia kernel: [ 105.448172] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:06:14 pia kernel: [ 123.376261] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:06:15 pia kernel: [ 123.652237] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:06:16 pia kernel: [ 124.836227] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:06:20 pia pulseaudio[5981]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
May 30 15:06:22 pia kernel: [ 130.436180] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:06:22 pia kernel: [ 130.716174] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:06:22 pia kernel: [ 130.996176] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:06:25 pia kernel: [ 134.256363] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:06:30 pia bonobo-activation-server (jon-6227): could not associate with desktop session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-A933wHNT6o: Connection refused
May 30 15:07:17 pia kernel: [ 185.424992] gvfs-gdu-volume[7108]: segfault at c ip 006ccfda sp bfe12650 error 4 in libgdu.so.0.0.0[6c4000+22000]
May 30 15:07:23 pia kernel: [ 192.085630] mixer_applet2[6171]: segfault at aaaaaaac ip 0039dbe2 sp bf87d150 error 4 in libglib-2.0.so.0.2100.0[37a000+c3000]
May 30 15:07:25 pia kernel: [ 194.144226] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:07:26 pia kernel: [ 194.420241] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:07:27 pia kernel: [ 195.604226] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:07:31 pia pulseaudio[7427]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
May 30 15:07:33 pia kernel: [ 201.572191] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:07:33 pia kernel: [ 201.852172] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:07:33 pia kernel: [ 202.136270] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:07:36 pia kernel: [ 205.316192] integrated sync not supported
May 30 15:07:57 pia kernel: [ 226....

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Bryce Harrington (bryce) wrote :

Hi jon-reeve,

Thanks for including the attached files. Could you also include your /var/log/Xorg.0.log (or Xorg.0.log.old) from after reproducing the issue?

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

tags: added: needs-xorglog
Changed in xorg (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Jonathan Reeve (jon-reeve) wrote :
Bryce Harrington (bryce)
affects: xorg (Ubuntu) → xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Christian Stöveken (excogitation) wrote :

For me this issue has been resolved with some recent update.

Revision history for this message
Bryce Harrington (bryce) wrote :

Jonathan, Christian reports the issue is solved for him - can you test karmic and confirm it is gone for you as well?

Changed in xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → New
status: New → Incomplete
Bryce Harrington (bryce)
tags: added: karmic
Revision history for this message
Jonathan Reeve (jon-reeve) wrote :

I'm no longer having problems with the screen brightness after I log in, but I've just started having this problem on the login screen. Changing the brightness is jumpy--it moves two brightness levels at a time. Also, the brightness indicator (as noted by another bug, which is mislabeled as fixed) uses the old (Intrepid) notification style instead of the new style.

Revision history for this message
Christian Stöveken (excogitation) wrote :

I can confirm Jonathan's experience on both counts.

Revision history for this message
Kieran Hogg (xerosis) wrote :

I'm not getting 100% the same symptoms but when I change my brightness (in KDE) it jumps from current to very dim to the new setting.

Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)
tags: added: 945gme backlight
removed: needs-xorglog
summary: - brightness fluxuates wildly on KMS (karmic)
+ [i945gme] brightness fluxuates wildly on KMS (karmic)
Revision history for this message
Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr) wrote :

In the output of `xrandr --verbose` there should be a few lines looking something like this:
 BACKLIGHT_CONTROL: kernel
  supported: native legacy combination kernel
 BACKLIGHT: 15 (0x0000000f) range: (0,15)
What are your corresponding lines?

Does the number on the BACKLIGHT line change?

Do you have one or more files called "brightness" in some subdirectory under /proc/acpi/video/ (the exact location below that varies)? Where are they? What do they say? Does it change?

Bryce Harrington (bryce)
Changed in xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → New
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Kieran Hogg (xerosis) wrote :

Before and after changing the brightness:

        BACKLIGHT_CONTROL: native
        supported: native legacy combination kernel
        BACKLIGHT: 296 (0x00000128) range: (0,296)

        BACKLIGHT_CONTROL: native
        supported: native legacy combination kernel
        BACKLIGHT: 272 (0x00000110) range: (0,296)

All the files called brightness contain <not supported>.

This bug has the particularly annoying side-effect of turning the brightness all the way down leaving the computer unusable without a reboot.

Bryce Harrington (bryce)
Changed in xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Christian Stöveken (excogitation) wrote :

I just realized that when trying to set display brightness in "Power Management Preferences" to some levels also triggers the
fluxuating.

In my case e.g. 87% causes brightness to constantly switch betwen 80 and 90%.

:/proc/acpi/video/IGD/LCD$ cat brightness
levels: 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
current: 80 (-> 70 -> 80 ...)

Also when already at 100% and hitting the raise brightness key again does sometimes start the fluxuating or just throws it back to the next lower level.

No backlight output in xrandr --verbose though.

Revision history for this message
RatSon (materemias) wrote :

i have the same issue Wind U100, latest Karmic.

Revision history for this message
Capsaicin (ragnarthomsen) wrote :

I experience this same bug on my Wind U100, running Karmic beta with latest updates...very annoying...

/proc/acpi/video/IGD/LCD/brightness:

levels: 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
current: 70

I hope this gets fixed soon as it is really annoying.

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Reeve (jon-reeve) wrote :

Still having crazy brightness issues, with Intel 945M on a Wind U100. The screen flickers in GDM, and every time I try to change the brightness, it will fluxuate between two values, making the screen flicker until I log out and log back in. The only line in Xrandr --verbose that addresses the backlight is:

BACKLIGHT: 0 (0x00000000) range: (0,8)

and there's nothing I can see about backlight control.

cat /proc/acpi/video/IGD/LCD/brightness
levels: 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
current: 20

It apparently really likes 20%, and if I change it, then log out and log back in, it will gradually revert back to 20%.

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Reeve (jon-reeve) wrote :
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