Bug 7299 - Unable to adjust screen brightness
Summary: Unable to adjust screen brightness
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: RPM Packages (show other bugs)
Version: 5
Hardware: x86_64 Linux
Priority: High major
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Mageia Bug Squad
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 8918 12133 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2012-09-02 19:54 CEST by Daniel Kjellin
Modified: 2015-09-22 13:15 CEST (History)
10 users (show)

See Also:
Source RPM:
CVE:
Status comment:


Attachments

Description Daniel Kjellin 2012-09-02 19:54:21 CEST
Description of problem:
I own an Acer aspire S3 and I can not adjust the screen brightness at all on it. If I press fn+left arrow the HUD shows up and the bar goes down but the screen is not actually updated. 

I am uncertain what information I need to provide for this bug, tell me what information is needed and I will provide it.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Kernel is Linux version 3.3.8-desktop-2.mga2


How reproducible:
Log in and press fn+left arrow.
Comment 1 José Jorge 2013-01-31 21:09:36 CET
you can try to see if some brightnes device is listed in /sys/class/backlight/*/*backlight*

CC: (none) => lists.jjorge

Comment 2 Daniel Kjellin 2013-02-04 10:05:09 CET
I have devices list in /sys/class/backlight/* but nothing that matches *backlight* I have 'brightness' and other devices.
Comment 3 José Jorge 2013-02-04 11:52:02 CET
You are right, I mistyped, I meant :

/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness

or 

/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

You can try to change brightness typing :

echo number > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
Comment 4 Daniel Kjellin 2013-02-17 03:13:30 CET
Thank you for your suggestions. 
I've spent some time and googled around and found that adding the following to the kernel boot options makes it possible to adjust the brightness with the keyboard:

acpi_backlight=vendor
Comment 5 José Jorge 2013-02-18 09:14:48 CET
Thanks, it also works on my hardware, so I added it as a workaround to the MGA3 errata
claire robinson 2013-02-18 10:54:37 CET

CC: (none) => tmb

Comment 6 Oleg Kitain 2013-07-20 11:15:50 CEST
I confirm this. While the issue is visible upstream, the sensible solution may be to a) add acpi_backlight=vendor as standard boot procedure in laptops, or b) take a database of laptops affected by the issue and add a kludge to check and install the option in case it matches the criteria. 
Anyway, point is, it needs to be automatic.

CC: (none) => oktain

Comment 7 Oleg Kitain 2013-07-20 11:17:10 CEST
(The issue for me is on the Dell Inspiron 3521 laptop)
Comment 8 Oleg Bosis 2013-07-21 07:47:56 CEST
Adding acpi_backlight=vendor doesn't help on some laptops. For example on my ASUS N56VZ neither acpi_video0/brightness nor asus_nb_wmi/brightness do work. The only working path is intel_backlight/brightness.

CC: (none) => olegbosis

Comment 9 José Jorge 2013-07-24 12:09:08 CEST
*** Bug 8918 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Manuel Hiebel 2013-10-22 12:18:23 CEST
This message is a reminder that Mageia 2 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately one month from now Mageia will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Mageia 2. At that time this bug will be closed as WONTFIX (EOL) if it remains open with a Mageia 'version' of '2'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' to a later Mageia version prior to Mageia 2's end of life.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we may not be able to fix it before Mageia 2 is end of life.  If you would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version of Mageia, you are encouraged to click on "Version" and change it against that version of Mageia.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a more recent Mageia release includes newer upstream software that fixes bugs or makes them obsolete.

-- 
The Mageia Bugsquad
Comment 11 Mustafa Muhammad 2013-11-01 11:20:51 CET
It is a problem with kernel, after updating after (>3.8), Still affecting Cauldron and MGA4 alphas, hope you fix it as I can't use my laptop with these kernels, I use older kernels.

Priority: Normal => High
CC: (none) => mustafaa.alhamdaani
Version: 2 => 3
Severity: normal => major

Mustafa Muhammad 2013-11-01 11:29:54 CET

Severity: major => normal

Comment 12 Morgan Leijström 2014-01-23 23:23:57 CET
*** Bug 12133 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

CC: (none) => liste

Comment 13 Morgan Leijström 2014-01-23 23:34:09 CET
"Mee too"

hardware: Lenovo Thhinkpad T61, nvidia, using proprietary driver
mga4, updated past RC, kernel 3.12.8-desktop-1.mga4

Brightness was working on mga2 on this machine. Never used mga3 here.
More details at the dupe: https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12133#c1

I can 
  # echo 15 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
and the overlay briefly shows and say 100%
changing 15 to 0 it say 0% instead.
And i can also read it back by
  # cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/actual_brightness
But real brightness do not change.

My kernel boot parameters was:
  splash quiet nokmsboot resume=/dev/vg-mga/swap
And I added acpi_backlight=vendor, but no change except the funny thing is that when changing the backlight by Fn+Home/End, it goes from 0 to 100% two times so some scaling got weird.

Maybe I need to disable something else?  What?

CC: (none) => fri
Version: 3 => Cauldron
Whiteboard: (none) => MGA3TOO
Severity: normal => major

Comment 14 Morgan Leijström 2014-01-23 23:45:09 CET
I now also added boot parameter acpi_osi=Linux, but nothing changed.
Comment 15 Morgan Leijström 2014-01-24 00:32:57 CET
i also added thinkpad-acpi.brightness_enable=1
  (found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Debugging/Backlight)
tried also efter removing acpi_osi=Linux
and also after adding acpi_osi="!Windows 2012" as per bug 8918

Every time all is the same.

Now in ls /sys/class/backlight/ there is the folder thinkpad_screen@ , and
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/max_brightness is 7
when i put 0 to 7 in it i get the on screen meter saying brightness 0 to 100%, but still nothing happens.
Comment 16 Morgan Leijström 2014-02-04 11:49:43 CET
Now at mga4 release my T61 works nicely using nvidia driver.

The R61 however - even with a clean reisntall mga 4 final - is not good as production system: with nvidia driver brightness works but the whole system hangs sometimes when coming back from sleep so only botton workin git th epower button! Using noveau it wakes up OK, but then with brightness stuck at minimal so you do not see anything except at night...  So one alternative may mess up files, and the other do not allow user to mess with his files... ;)

Whiteboard: MGA3TOO => MGA3TOO MGA4TOO

Comment 17 Morgan Leijström 2014-02-04 12:06:30 CET
This problem seem not to be getting solved, so that R61 must be downgraded to mga2 or other distro if things do not improve very soon.

Would it be possible to offer a mga4 kernel 3.8, and suitable nvidia driver in testing repo for us having this problem, as per comment 11 ?

Can I provide some log/info whatever?
Comment 18 José Jorge 2014-02-04 12:09:58 CET
(In reply to Morgan Leijström from comment #17)
> This problem seem not to be getting solved, so that R61 must be downgraded
> to mga2 or other distro if things do not improve very soon.

Doesn't MGA3 work for you?

> 
> Would it be possible to offer a mga4 kernel 3.8, and suitable nvidia driver
> in testing repo for us having this problem, as per comment 11 ?
> 
> Can I provide some log/info whatever?

Brightness is kernel upstream bug.
Nvidia is proprietary, you must report upstream, we cannot do anything for it.
Comment 19 Morgan Leijström 2014-02-04 13:10:24 CET
Actually this R61 jumped from mga2 to mga4, but someone else here have set MGA3TOO.

Ah i spotted a difference in my setup on T61 and R61: i forgot to add to the kernel boot parameters. Have now added all:
acpi_backlight=vendor thinkpad-acpi.brightness_enable=1 acpi_osi="!Windows 2012"
and brightness seem to be OK.  I have not tested if all is needed, probably not...   Resume need more test cycles as it did not hang every time.

We are not using the latest driver due to other issues, but it do not help anyway... bug 11946


I agree with Linus:
http://www.itworld.com/open-source/377696/why-did-nvidia-cripple-its-linux-driver
Comment 20 Morgan Leijström 2014-02-08 23:28:40 CET
Hm now it do not matter if i have the options i listed or not.
I had got the problem on the R61 that it hung with black screen after hibernation, and if i suspended it, it forgot the old X session upon return, X restarted.
So i removed al options and during next boot it wrote something about wrong graphics driver, rebooted itself and now resume and hibernation works on both.

Now brightness is always 100 % - good thing it is so also after getting back from hibernation or suspend.
Comment 21 Morgan Leijström 2014-02-11 13:51:39 CET
Ah now i get this

The brightness is written to hardware on returning from suspend/hibernation.

So i can set the brightness slider using the Fn+brightness key, make it suspend, and wake it up and brightnes got set as i wanted.

If I enable brightness adjustments in the power controls (clicking the battery icon in KDE panel) to lower the brightness, the result of course is that screen is dimmed after resume.  So i disable it.  (already had it disabled due to suspend and hibernate not working good)



Also, during boot the system ask for luks encryption key, and during that screen i can adjust brightness.
Comment 22 Bernard SIAUD 2014-02-11 18:15:21 CET
Now, it's good for me :
[troumad@localhost Documents]$ xrandr --output LVDS1 --set Backlight 10
[troumad@localhost Documents]$ xrandr --output LVDS1 --set Backlight 100

I have mageia5 (Cauldron).
Comment 23 André DESMOTTES 2014-05-24 11:38:27 CEST
hello,

Same brightness problems with Cauldron installed on a DELL latitude D630. Graphic driver Intel i810.
The brightness slider appears but doesn't work. Maga 2, 3 and 4 were working fine.
The command: # echo 1 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/bl_power solves the problem. To be done after each boot.

CC: (none) => lebarhon

Comment 24 Pavel Kreuzt 2014-05-25 21:13:28 CEST
Not sure if related, but in my Asus laptop I'm getting some problems with backlight settings not remaining after reboot. It also can be some issue or interference with the Nvidia Optimus. In dmesg I see the following:

[   18.561845] video LNXVIDEO:00: Restoring backlight state
[   18.562245] video LNXVIDEO:02: Restoring backlight state


Is it normal lo have 2 LNXVIDEO:02 devices?

CC: (none) => pkreuzt

Comment 25 André DESMOTTES 2014-07-01 11:11:09 CEST
Hello,
I noticed that If I do
Menu -> leave -> Sleep -> wake up (Power on button) -> user password,
the brightness works fine and can be configured as liked.
Hope this helps.
Comment 26 André DESMOTTES 2014-07-09 22:26:10 CEST
Bug still valid with M5A1
Classical DVD 64 KDE
Comment 27 André DESMOTTES 2014-08-15 10:06:45 CEST
Hello,

Problem solved for me with M5A2
Good job
Comment 28 Marja Van Waes 2014-11-12 22:00:15 CET
(In reply to André DESMOTTES from comment #27)
> Hello,
> 
> Problem solved for me with M5A2
> Good job

@ all

please check whether it is solved in 5beta1 for you.

If so, the version of this bug should be changed to "4" and "MGA4TOO" removed from the whiteboard.

CC: (none) => marja11

Comment 29 Morgan Leijström 2014-11-12 22:48:30 CET
Problem is gone for me.
Comment 30 Mustafa Muhammad 2014-12-14 10:45:41 CET
Problem is gone for me too.
Comment 31 Marja Van Waes 2014-12-14 11:00:38 CET
Thanks for the feedback, changing version to "4"

Version: Cauldron => 4
Whiteboard: MGA3TOO MGA4TOO => (none)

Comment 32 Samuel Verschelde 2015-09-21 13:20:30 CEST
Mageia 4 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2015-09-19. It is is no longer 
maintained, which means that it will not receive any further security or bug 
fix updates.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you plan to 
fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' to a later 
Mageia version.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we weren't 
able to fix it before Mageia 4's end of life. If you are able to reproduce it 
against a later version of Mageia, you are encouraged to click on "Version" and 
change it against that version of Mageia. If it's valid in several versions, 
select the highest and add MGAxTOO in whiteboard for each other valid release.
Example: it's valid in cauldron and Mageia 5, set to cauldron and add MGA5TOO.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's lifetime, 
sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a more recent Mageia 
release includes newer upstream software that fixes bugs or makes them obsolete.

If you would like to help fixing bugs in the future, don't hesitate to join the
packager team via our mentoring program [1] or join the teams that fit you 
most [2].

[1] https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Becoming_a_Mageia_Packager
[2] http://www.mageia.org/contribute/
Comment 33 Daniel Kjellin 2015-09-22 12:46:06 CEST
This bug is still present on my system running Mageia 5. As has been suggested by the various people commenting on this bug saying "Brightness is kernel upstream bug." I'm happy to close it. Given a number of people have reported it fixed I'm going to put this bug as "resolved" even though the problem persists for me.

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Version: 4 => 5
Resolution: (none) => FIXED

Comment 34 Rémi Verschelde 2015-09-22 12:52:37 CEST
Let's close it as "WORKSFORME" then (though it's more "WORKSFOROTHERS" :P).

Resolution: FIXED => WORKSFORME

Comment 35 Morgan Leijström 2015-09-22 13:15:09 CEST
It kind of works for us here but with different quirks on T43 and T61 laptops.

On our T61 laptops (3 machines) the slider works smoothly, but at lowest position it blacks the screen completely = not OK.  When using Fn+key it instead do not dim down enough (plus it flashes fully bright for every change) so the slider is the way there.

On our two T43 machines the Fn+key method works perfectly, but slider is do not affect brightness. (at least not immediately, but i think it al least before read in last state after resume from suspend)

Both mga5, T43 are 32 bit, ATI graphics, T61 are 64 bit nvidia.

So no laptop here handles dimming perfectly, but at least one usable method exist for each.

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