Arch Linux

cb474

Member

Registered: 2009-04-04

Posts: 469

gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

After the upgrade to gnome-power-manager 2.26.1-1 today, my laptop screen backlight is being powered off constantly, after only about 1 minute. It's not the screen blanking, but the backlight going off. It comes right back up if I do anything on the keyboard.

My power management preferences haven't changed though. They're all set (as before the upgrade) to never dim the display and never put the display to sleep. So why is the backlight going off anyway?

Also, this pretty distinctly seems to have to do with Gnome and not X. If I leave the laptop for an extended period at the GDM login screen, the backlight is never powered off. The problem only develops after I have logged into Gnome.

Thanks for any help.

Last edited by cb474 (2009-04-23 07:14:55)

Venator85

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2007-10-18

Posts: 62

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

I noticed that too. Is is quite annoying...

Andy Mack

Member

Registered: 2008-06-16

Posts: 133

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

Same here

cb474

Member

Registered: 2009-04-04

Posts: 469

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

One thing I've noticed is weird about this is that the time it takes to power off is not consistent. Sometimes its about a minute of not touching the keyboard. Other times more like thirty seconds. Sometimes just a couple seconds.

eldragon

Member

From: Buenos Aires

Registered: 2008-11-18

Posts: 1,029

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

same here.... file a bug?

alessandro_ufms

Member

From: Campo Grande, MS - Brazil

Registered: 2008-06-25

Posts: 153

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

Same here

schatzs

Member

Registered: 2009-03-28

Posts: 26

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

I'm still having the opposite problem (screen never powers down on my desktop) after the g-p-m update yesterday. We'll, after I updated it did work one time (meaning the monitor powered down after the 15 minute delay) but never again.

kalpik

Member

From: India

Registered: 2007-05-08

Posts: 163

Website

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

They screwed up g-p-m with the 2.26 upgrade.. It doesn't even detect my UPS anymore

aqamar

Member

Registered: 2008-09-01

Posts: 49

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

same here

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

this issues are upstream. i think is better to comment there and help devs to fix them properly.

ups: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=579855
screensaver and backlight(see comments) : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=576169

---

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

cb474

Member

Registered: 2009-04-04

Posts: 469

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

Thanks, I looked for bugs on this, but didn't find that one on the backlight for some reason. I was about to issue my own bug report. Anyway, so I added my comments to the bug report, but it has been marked "fixed" already (because it was really addressing a slightly different issue with DPMS), so I don't know if I need to start a new bug report or not. I'll wait and see what kind of reply I get. (In fact, it seems like the fix to the problem in the backlight bug report may have caused the problem addressed in this thread.)

That said, I found a work around, if you want to completely disable the backlight ever going off. You can issue the command:

xset -dpms

This disables entirely the display power management system (which I'm guessing gnome-power-manager operates as a frontend for). Of course, if you want your screen to be put to sleep after some set point of time this won't work. But you may be able to configure this directly with other xset commands or in xorg.conf (see links below).

To disable dpms at startup. I found oddly that it didn't work to add it to my .xinitrc. So instead I went to System > Preferences > Startup Applications. Added an a program in the "Startup Programs" tab, named it "DPMS (disable)" and for the command put:

xset -dpms

This is working.

You can also configue DPMS in xorg.conf, but I'm not using xorg.conf so I didn't fiddle with it. See: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DPMS and http://www.shallowsky.com/linux/x-screen-blanking.html.

Hope that helps.

Last edited by cb474 (2009-04-24 08:26:23)

Fraterius

Member

Registered: 2008-12-03

Posts: 18

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

You don't need to add anything, just disable in that very same place autostart of gnome-power-manager , after it'll be fixed just put the tick back.

cb474

Member

Registered: 2009-04-04

Posts: 469

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

You don't need to add anything, just disable in that very same place autostart of gnome-power-manager , after it'll be fixed just put the tick back.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure I follow what you're suggesting. Are you saying people should disable gnome-power-manager as a startup process (in the Startup Applications preference gui) and then the backlight will never power off? And are you also saying people should then just wait for the next update to the gnome-power-manager package, hoping the problem is fixed, and then reenable it as a startup process?

Thanks for any further clarification.

Fraterius

Member

Registered: 2008-12-03

Posts: 18

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

Yes exactly, but know even that my gnome-power-manager is off, I still got that problem, but after 30 minutes or something like that, not exactly sure but it's not one minute . It's because some other application starts the gnome-power-manager, not sure witch one and why .

cb474

Member

Registered: 2009-04-04

Posts: 469

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

Okay, thanks. I guess I'm happy enough with my "xset -dpms" solution (as a startup process). Gnome-power-manager still provides some other functionality that I'd like to have, while I'm crossing my fingers that the next version with fix the bug. Good luck with your troubleshooting on this problem.

Fraterius

Member

Registered: 2008-12-03

Posts: 18

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

Ok I've managed to dill with it, my screen saver was set to 10 minutes, to blank, after using this "xset s off" everything works just fine .

lucasdemarchi

Member

From: Brazil

Registered: 2009-03-26

Posts: 34

Website

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

I downgraded g-p-m to 2.26.0-2 and it's working again. Hopefully it will be fixed upstream

cb474

Member

Registered: 2009-04-04

Posts: 469

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

Okay, I filed a new bug report on this: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=580570

Last edited by cb474 (2009-04-28 09:49:39)

eldragon

Member

From: Buenos Aires

Registered: 2008-11-18

Posts: 1,029

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

hmmm somthing that might prove irrelevant: i had a problem with openoffice not starting with my account.... ended up being some hidden gconf key which i never found. i deleted my entire .gconf folder. and now both openoffice starts...and suddenly the backlight stopped powering off..

can anyone confirm this? or is it just a fluke?

cb474

Member

Registered: 2009-04-04

Posts: 469

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

I thought about trying this, because I vaguely recalled seeing this as a solution to other sort of similar problems in the past. But I really wasn't happy about the idea of losing all my settings, so I didn't try it. I guess maybe I will now. Actually, maybe I'll try just deleting the gnome-power-manager or even just the backlight settings in the gnome-power-manager folder in the gconf folder first. I'll report back once I get a chance.

Last edited by cb474 (2009-04-28 12:26:53)

iceman

Member

From: Turin

Registered: 2009-03-04

Posts: 5

Website

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

I downgraded g-p-m to 2.26.0-2 and it's working again. Hopefully it will be fixed upstream

I don't have package in my cache and there is no repositories, old, who have exactly the package you are talking.
Can you upload in "somewhere" to help us restoring it?
Thank you

Venator85

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2007-10-18

Posts: 62

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?y2ynziywnfi

Leonid.I

Member

From: Aethyr

Registered: 2009-03-22

Posts: 999

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

Is long as only the screen is concerned, isn't it easier to insert

   Option "BlankTime" "10"

into ServerLayout of xorg.conf and just

   pkill gnome-power-manager

altogether?

---

Arch Linux is more than just GNU/Linux -- it's an adventure
pkill -9 systemd

alessandro_ufms

Member

From: Campo Grande, MS - Brazil

Registered: 2008-06-25

Posts: 153

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?y2ynziywnfi

Thank you very much...

cb474

Member

Registered: 2009-04-04

Posts: 469

Re: gnome-power-manager update causes backlight to power off frequently

In the bug I posted at Gnome, someone pointed out that this problem only seems to occur when the display sleep value is set at "Never" in gnome-power-manager. I switched my setting to the next highest value, 2 hours and 1 minute, and am finding this to be the case as well.