Keyboard doesn't recognize brightness keys

wuduwudu · 2023-11-13 11:56:55

Hello everyone. When I started my laptop today, for some reason it doesn't recognize my brightness keys, that is Fn+F2/F3, anymore. Both acpi_listen and xev do not show any output when pressing the aforementioned key combinations. The keys still work fine individually, so it has to be a software issue.

I did some troubleshooting for a different issue (2. below) two days ago but it still worked yesterday and I don't think I made any changes in the first place.

There are two other issues that are probably not related and that I wanted to ask about after some more troubleshooting but I'll mention them for completion's sake:

1. I can't seem to get the volume keys in acpi to work. Brightness keys worked until the keys stopped being recognized today, and listening for headphone plug in/out to send an update signal to my statusbar works fine as well. I currently set the binding for the volume keys in my window manager (dwm).

2. My keyboard layout changes to US after starting X11/dwm. On the tty it has the correct German layout set in my vconsole.conf. So far I've set it to the correct layout in my .xinitrc, but sometimes after a system update it reverts back to the US layout which is quite annoying. According to localectl status my X11 Layout is "unset" but I haven't found out how to set it permanently.

Thank you for any help.

Last edited by wuduwudu (2023-11-13 11:58:01)

seth · 2023-11-13 15:30:30

The keys still work fine individually, so it has to be a software issue.

The Fn keys are typically implemented in hardware - do you get response in "evtest" or "libinput debug-events"?

Last edited by seth (2023-11-13 15:30:39)

wuduwudu · 2023-11-13 15:55:00

seth wrote:

The keys still work fine individually, so it has to be a software issue.
The Fn keys are typically implemented in hardware - do you get response in "evtest" or "libinput debug-events"?

evtest F2:

Event: time 1699890049.482884, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 3c
Event: time 1699890049.482884, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 60 (KEY_F2), value 1
Event: time 1699890049.482884, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
^[OQEvent: time 1699890049.580673, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 3c
Event: time 1699890049.580673, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 60 (KEY_F2), value 0
Event: time 1699890049.580673, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

evtest Fn+F2:

Event: time 1699890135.021682, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value ab
Event: time 1699890135.021682, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1699890135.030940, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value ab
Event: time 1699890135.030940, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

I don't get a response from just Fn by itself.

From libinput I only get a response from F2/F3 by themselves. Fn and Fn+F2/F3 shows nothing. Fn+F7/F8 get the correct KEY_VOLUMEDOWN/UP response from both programs.

Last edited by wuduwudu (2023-11-13 15:57:08)

seth · 2023-11-13 16:31:16

The events don't arrive at the kernel level, might be some WMI module - try the behavior of the LTS kernel.
If that works, compare lsmod.

wuduwudu · 2023-11-13 19:56:36

seth wrote:

The events don't arrive at the kernel level, might be some WMI module - try the behavior of the LTS kernel.
If that works, compare lsmod.

Ok so it worked with the LTS kernel, and then it worked with the normal one after switching back...

I'm not sure what I'm looking for in the lsmod output. The only difference between the normal kernel before and after switching is that I have "snd_ctl_led" now but it seems to be related to sound.

Exclusive to linux:
snd_sof_amd_vangogh
snd_sof_xtensa_dsp
snd_acp_legacy_common
uvc
i2c_algo_bit
drm_exec
drm_suballoc_helper
amdxcp

Exclusive to linux-lts:
snd_ctl_led (in linux after switch)
acpi_cpufreq
bpf_preload

Another strange thing I noticed is that with the LTS kernel the brightness files were located at "/sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_bl0" while they have been at *bl1 with the normal kernel both before and after switching.

seth · 2023-11-13 20:00:26

Is there a parallel windows installation?
What's the "bl0" device (if there's any)?
Do the keys still work after a cold boot (ie. shutdowm poweoff, then boot - not a reboot)?
Wild guess, if the issue shows up again: Enable https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA … de_setting and in doubt add "initcall_blacklist=simpledrm_platform_driver_init" to the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel_parameters (it doesn't matter that there's no nvidia device, it's just to block the simpledrm one)

wuduwudu · 2023-11-13 20:15:58

seth wrote:

Is there a parallel windows installation?
What's the "bl0" device (if there's any)?
Do the keys still work after a cold boot (ie. shutdowm poweoff, then boot - not a reboot)?
Wild guess, if the issue shows up again: Enable https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA … de_setting and in doubt add "initcall_blacklist=simpledrm_platform_driver_init" to the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel_parameters (it doesn't matter that there's no nvidia device, it's just to block the simpledrm one)

No, I deleted all partitions when I installed Arch.
There is no bl0 device, I searched the file system for "*bl0*" and only got a file in /var from when I used the LTS kernel.
Yes, I just tried it, it still works.
Thank you, I will try that if it happens again.

Arch Linux

#1 2023-11-13 11:56:55

Keyboard doesn't recognize brightness keys

#2 2023-11-13 15:30:30

Re: Keyboard doesn't recognize brightness keys

#3 2023-11-13 15:55:00

Re: Keyboard doesn't recognize brightness keys

#4 2023-11-13 16:31:16

Re: Keyboard doesn't recognize brightness keys

#5 2023-11-13 19:56:36

Re: Keyboard doesn't recognize brightness keys

#6 2023-11-13 20:00:26

Re: Keyboard doesn't recognize brightness keys

#7 2023-11-13 20:15:58

Re: Keyboard doesn't recognize brightness keys

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