"display brightness" button unresponsive

jyoung · 2017-12-29 18:10:41

Hi Folks,

When add a power manager item to my panel, it seems to work in most ways, but the button that controls screen brightness is unresponsive. When I click it, the power manager pop-down window disappears, as if I've clicked an inactive part of the pop-down window.

I'm running gentoo, and the power manager version is xfce4-power-manager-1.6.1. Any suggestions would be welcome!

ToZ · 2017-12-29 19:56:24

Try to get some debug info. To do so, from a terminal window first quit the current instance of xfce4-power-manager:

xfce4-power-manager --quit

...then start it in debug mode:

xfce4-power-manager --no-daemon --debug

...click on the brightness control and see if anything is noted in the terminal window.

Also post back:

xfce4-power-manager --dump

There was a recent bug that was causing a crash on the clicking the brightness control, but that was fixed in 1.6.0. Perhaps it has returned.

jyoung · 2017-12-30 05:29:12

Done! The item that would seem to be important is "Has brightness panel", but that's marked as "True". Maybe some of these other items are telling.

* (xfce4-power-manager:6115): WARNING **: Failed to get name owner: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not get owner of name 'org.xfce.PowerManager': no such name


** (xfce4-power-manager:6115): WARNING **: Failed to get name owner: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not get owner of name 'org.freedesktop.PowerManagement': no such name


** (xfce4-power-manager:6115): WARNING **: Failed to get name owner: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not get owner of name 'org.xfce.PowerManager': no such name


(xfce4-power-manager:6115): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: /var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/glib-2.52.3/work/glib-2.52.3/gobject/gsignal.c:2523: signal 'Changed' is invalid for instance '0xd35880' of type 'GDBusProxy'

(xfce4-power-manager:6115): xfce4-power-manager-WARNING **: could not map keysym 1008ffa8 to keycode


(xfce4-power-manager:6115): xfce4-power-manager-WARNING **: Unable to set the kernel brightness switch parameter to 0.

(xfce4-power-manager:6115): xfce4-power-manager-WARNING **: Failed to get keyboard max brightness level : GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such interface 'org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight' on object at path /org/freedesktop/UPower/KbdBacklight

(xfce4-power-manager:6115): xfce4-power-manager-WARNING **: ../panel-plugins/power-manager-plugin/power-manager-button.c:815: invalid property id 2 for "show-panel-label" of type 'GParamInt' in 'PowerManagerButton'

(xfce4-power-manager:6115): xfce4-power-manager-WARNING **: ../panel-plugins/power-manager-plugin/power-manager-button.c:815: invalid property id 2 for "show-panel-label" of type 'GParamInt' in 'PowerManagerButton'
---------------------------------------------------
       Xfce power manager version 1.6.1
With policykit support
Without network manager support
---------------------------------------------------
Can suspend: False
Can hibernate: True
Authorized to suspend: False
Authorized to hibernate: False
Authorized to shutdown: False
Has battery: True
Has brightness panel: True
Has power button: True
Has hibernate button: True
Has sleep button: True
Has LID: True

ToZ · 2017-12-30 13:46:23

I wouldn't worry about most of the warning messages, I get them as well. However:

(xfce4-power-manager:6115): xfce4-power-manager-WARNING **: Unable to set the kernel brightness switch parameter to 0.

What type of video card do you have (and which driver are you using)?

lspci -vnn | grep -A10 VGA

...and what backlight interfraces are exposed?

ls /sys/class/backlight/

Can you change the brightness in other ways?

jyoung · 2017-12-30 14:40:07

As of now, I don't have any other way to change the display brightness. (Luckily, it's on max instead of min.) However, I've previously had debian installed on this computer, and there I was able to change the brightness (with the xfce power manager), so I know that at least it's capable of that.

The video card:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 520 [8086:1916] (rev 07) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Microsoft Corporation HD Graphics 520 [1414:0015]
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 284
	Memory at a0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	Memory at 90000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: [40] Vendor Specific Information: Len=0c <?>
	Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [ac] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
	Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2

.. and the /sys/class/backlight folder:

ls /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/*
/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/actual_brightness
/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/bl_power
/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/max_brightness
/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/type
/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/uevent

/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/device:
device  edid     i2c-4            modes  status     uevent
dpms    enabled  intel_backlight  power  subsystem

/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/power:
async                 runtime_active_kids  runtime_status
autosuspend_delay_ms  runtime_active_time  runtime_suspended_time
control               runtime_enabled      runtime_usage

/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/subsystem:
intel_backlight

ToZ · 2017-12-30 17:13:10

Are you using the intel driver (as opposed to the built-in modesetting driver)? The first command cut off before it was displayed. Try instead:

lspci -vnn | grep -A15 VGA

Does manually echoing values into /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness change the backlight?

echo XX | sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

...where XX is a value between 0 and the contents of /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/max_brightness.

jyoung · 2017-12-31 02:54:11

It looks like it's the i915 driver. I've actually been messing around with this, though, since I'm also experiencing a weird issue where X is taking up ~90% of my cpu. If you have any suggestions there too, I'd be all ears.

lspci -vnn | grep -A15 VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 520 [8086:1916] (rev 07) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: Microsoft Corporation HD Graphics 520 [1414:0015]
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 276
	Memory at a0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
	Memory at 90000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
	[virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: [40] Vendor Specific Information: Len=0c <?>
	Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [ac] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
	Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
	Capabilities: [100] Process Address Space ID (PASID)
	Capabilities: [200] Address Translation Service (ATS)
	Capabilities: [300] Page Request Interface (PRI)
	Kernel driver in use: i915

Echoing values directly into /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness worked; maybe this points to a permission issue for the widget?

ToZ · 2017-12-31 03:33:09

jyoung wrote:

Echoing values directly into /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness worked; maybe this points to a permission issue for the widget?

Looks like. Do you have a policykit agent installed? What does the following return?

pkaction -v | grep -A12 backlight

jyoung · 2018-01-01 19:20:36

I have polkit and polkit-gnome installed.

 pkaction -v | grep -A12 backlight

returns

org.x.xf86-video-intel.backlight-helper:
  description:       Modify lcd panel brightness
  message:           Authentication is required to modify the lcd panel brightness
  vendor:            The X.Org project
  vendor_url:        https://01.org/linuxgraphics/community/xf86-video-intel
  icon:              brightness
  implicit any:      no
  implicit inactive: no
  implicit active:   yes
  annotation:        org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.path -> /usr/libexec/xf86-video-intel-backlight-helper

org.xfce.power.backlight-helper:
  description:       Modify the laptop display brightness
  message:           Authentication is required to modify the laptop display brightness
  vendor:            XFCE Power Manager
  vendor_url:        http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-power-manager
  icon:              battery
  implicit any:      no
  implicit inactive: no
  implicit active:   yes
  annotation:        org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.path -> /usr/sbin/xfpm-power-backlight-helper

org.xfce.power.xfce4-pm-helper:
  description:       Suspend or hibernate the system
  message:           Authentication is required to place the system in suspend or hibernate mode
  vendor:            XFCE Power Manager
  vendor_url:        http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-power-manager
  icon:              battery
  implicit any:      auth_admin
  implicit inactive: auth_admin
  implicit active:   yes
  annotation:        org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.path -> /usr/sbin/xfce4-pm-helper

"Authentication is required to modify the lcd panel brightness" sounds promising.

ToZ · 2018-01-01 21:26:28

I don't have much experience with gentoo. Have you gone through this page including the troubleshooting links?

You can also try pkexec directly with those commands above. For example:

pkexec /usr/sbin/xfpm-power-backlight-helper --set-brightness 200

You also have a /usr/libexec/xf86-video-intel-backlight-helper file that comes from the intel driver (I'm using the modesetting driver so I don't have it). Try a similar command to the one above using pkexec to see if it works.

Perhaps one of them will generate an error message that might point the way to the issue. But it does look like some sort of permissions/authentication issue.

jyoung · 2018-01-03 04:40:47

I get:

Error executing command as another user: Not authorized

This incident has been reported.

This looks *very* similar to what sudo produces when the user isn't in the sudoers file. I vaguely recall somewhere that the way to allow a normal user to initiate a shutdown from the menu had to do with the sudoers file. I'll look around and see if I can find that information.

I actually just uninstalled the xf86-video-intel driver since it wasn't being used (i915 instead). I could reinstall it and see what that produces ...

jyoung · 2018-01-03 05:47:01

One more clue: logging in as root (before X starts), I get the same issue with the power manager. However, I'm able to shutdown through the menu.

jyoung · 2018-01-03 19:58:53

Just an update: Searching around, I found this form: forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1073892-h … nager.html

Which suggested changing the contents of the .xinitrc file from

exec startxfce4

to

exec startxfce4 --with-ck-launch

This solved the shutdown/hibernate buttons issue, but not the power management issue. Perhaps that issue was unrelated.

ToZ · 2018-01-04 02:11:39

You have some sort of policykit/consolekit issue on your computer. I'm not sure where the issue is because I don't use gentoo. Double-check that your policykit/consolekit setup is correct.

jyoung · 2018-01-13 22:14:46

Hi,

I've check over the polkit and console kit setup, with no luck.

The one seemingly promising lead I found was the pm-utils flag for console kit. For non-gentoo folks, gentoo can build a package with certain optional flags turned on or off. The "pm" stands for power management. I enabled this flag and rebuild the relevant packages, but this did not solve this issue.

ToZ · 2018-01-14 13:27:46

In the file /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.xfce.power.policy file, try changing the policyconfig "allow_any" and "allow_inactive" to yes. Something like this:

.....
    <defaults>
      <allow_any>yes</allow_any>
      <allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>
      <allow_active>yes</allow_active>
    </defaults>

Also, what does the following return?

ps -ef | grep -i polkit

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Sub domains

#1 2017-12-29 18:10:41

"display brightness" button unresponsive

#2 2017-12-29 19:56:24

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#3 2017-12-30 05:29:12

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#4 2017-12-30 13:46:23

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#5 2017-12-30 14:40:07

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#6 2017-12-30 17:13:10

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#7 2017-12-31 02:54:11

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#8 2017-12-31 03:33:09

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#9 2018-01-01 19:20:36

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#10 2018-01-01 21:26:28

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#11 2018-01-03 04:40:47

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#12 2018-01-03 05:47:01

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#13 2018-01-03 19:58:53

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#14 2018-01-04 02:11:39

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#15 2018-01-13 22:14:46

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

#16 2018-01-14 13:27:46

Re: "display brightness" button unresponsive

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