Brightness control buttons turning off my screen

Lucyfer · 2025-07-26 05:49:56

I have had a problem using my brightness buttons, it comepletely sets my screen to black when I press the brighness down button and then turns it on again when I press the brightness up button. Normally I use xbindkeys with the following configuration:

"xbacklight -inc 10 -time 100 -fps 60"
XF86MonBrightnessUp
"xbacklight -dec 10 -time 100 -fps 60"
XF86MonBrightnessDown

But even when xbindkeys is not running my screen still turns off and on when pressing the brightness buttons. XBindkeys however does get the key input as
"/sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_bl1/brightness" does change while the screen turns off. And running xbacklight from the terminal also changes my brightness as expected without turning on and off my screen.

I am using the I3 window manager and start it using xinitrc on Arch Linux x86_64 - 6.15.7-arch1-1. My CPU is an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U with Radeon Graphics.

Lucyfer · 2025-07-26 06:41:00

After updating to Linux version 6.15.8-arch1-1 it still does not work. Next to that I am using the xf86-video-amdgpu on version 23.0.0-2.

Although I have found that the buttons do work normally between the brightness values of 0 6472 and 6479 to 51805. Anything outside this range makes my screen turn off when the brightness down button is pressed. My maximum brightness is 64764 and running xbacklight via terminal does not turn off my screen even outside this range.

On further inspection there seem to be zones where the buttons have weird behaviour. For example 64759 to 64764 do not seem to work but 64758 and below again seems to work. Then around 58283 there is a value that does not work, and then around 51810. I have noticed some of these as some of these ranges are at the 10% increment/decrement steps.

xbacklight still works normally on these zones, but when pressing the brightness down button in any of these zones turns my screen off (even while xbindkeys is off and my brightness does not change in /sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_bl1/brightness).

Last edited by Lucyfer (2025-07-26 07:04:14)

seth · 2025-07-26 07:07:05

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … backlight/ (will not work w/ amd) or https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/acpilight
Stop using any shortcuts, can you control the backlight w/ https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … htnessctl/ ?

Then kill xbindkeys, run "xev -event keyboard" and press your backlight keys, what does that print in xev?

On a formal note, please don't bump. Edit your previous post to mend it if nobody has yet replied (you're generating fake activity that will mislead others to think the thread is active - so end up undermining yourself)

Edit: fwwi, there've been two drastic changes to the AMDGPU backlight handlng, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=306798
But that will not address anything related to "stuff that only happens when i use some keyboard shortcut" - that likely means the shortcut doesn't run the assumed commands at all.

Last edited by seth (2025-07-26 07:10:05)

Lucyfer · 2025-07-26 10:33:38

Thank you for your response, sorry for the bump, that was unintended and just some more info I thought I should share. I will edit my posts from now on.

First of all, xev gives me the following (with xbindkeys disabled):

KeyPress event, serial 28, synthetic NO, window 0x2000001,
    root 0x3c0, subw 0x0, time 14965465, (268,478), root:(1234,508),
    state 0x0, keycode 232 (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 28, synthetic NO, window 0x2000001,
    root 0x3c0, subw 0x0, time 14965465, (268,478), root:(1234,508),
    state 0x0, keycode 232 (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyPress event, serial 29, synthetic NO, window 0x2000001,
    root 0x3c0, subw 0x0, time 14965953, (268,478), root:(1234,508),
    state 0x0, keycode 233 (keysym 0x1008ff02, XF86MonBrightnessUp), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 29, synthetic NO, window 0x2000001,
    root 0x3c0, subw 0x0, time 14965953, (268,478), root:(1234,508),
    state 0x0, keycode 233 (keysym 0x1008ff02, XF86MonBrightnessUp), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

I am able to controll my brightness using brightnessctl and xbacklight without any problems.

Only when I click the XF86MonBrightnessDown shortcut in those specific brightness ranges (6472 to 6479, 64500 to 6505, 64759 to 64764 and probably a lot more) my screen just turns off. But running a command to check my brightness says that the brightness still has changed as it should have under normal circumstances.

Even clicking the shortcut while nothing is bound to it in xbindkeys turns off my screen, but as expected does not change my brightness.

This makes me think something else is active in the background that could interfere.

Last edited by Lucyfer (2025-07-26 18:26:04)

seth · 2025-07-26 14:14:17

Please use [code][/code] tags. Edit your post in this regard.

This makes me think something else is active in the background that could interfere.

Could be sth. like acpid, keyd… or anything else.
I guess we'll have to look through

ps aux

for a somewhat informed guess.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-07-26 05:49:56

Brightness control buttons turning off my screen

#2 2025-07-26 06:41:00

Re: Brightness control buttons turning off my screen

#3 2025-07-26 07:07:05

Re: Brightness control buttons turning off my screen

#4 2025-07-26 10:33:38

Re: Brightness control buttons turning off my screen

#5 2025-07-26 14:14:17

Re: Brightness control buttons turning off my screen

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