Bug 947976 - Brightness/backlight keys (fn+F8, fn+F9) does not work on lenovo T530 out of the box
Summary: Brightness/backlight keys (fn+F8, fn+F9) does not work on lenovo T530 out of ...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE of bug 1089545
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: 19
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Kernel Maintainer List
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On: 911203
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2013-04-03 16:49 UTC by Jan Pokorný [poki]
Modified: 2014-05-05 14:50 UTC (History)
15 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of: 911203
Environment:
Last Closed: 2014-05-05 14:50:31 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Linux Kernel 51231 0 None None None Never
Linux Kernel 60682 0 None None None Never

Description Jan Pokorný [poki] 2013-04-03 16:49:57 UTC
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #911203 +++

--- Additional comment from Jan Pokorny on 2013-04-03 18:40:47 CEST ---

After fresh F18 install, I wasn't able to adjust brightness at all.
Appending "acpi_backlight=vendor" to kernel command-line (temporarily)
fixed the issue for me.

---

It would be nice if such basic thing like eyes-saver (from default=top
brightness).

Packages:
kernel-3.8.5-201.fc18.x86_64
(previous kernel-3.8.3-201.fc18.x86_64 ditto)

Comment 1 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2013-04-03 16:50:42 UTC
...worked out of the box

Comment 3 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2013-05-06 09:22:21 UTC
kernel-3.8.11-200.fc18.x86_64 ditto

Confirming these messages being logged upon changing the brightness via keys
once booted with acpi_backlight=vendor:

> thinkpad_acpi: unknown possible thermal alarm or keyboard event received
> thinkpad_acpi: unhandled HKEY event 0x6050
> thinkpad_acpi: please report the conditions when this event happened to
>                ibm-acpi-devel.net

Comment 4 Josh Boyer 2013-10-31 14:17:29 UTC
Does this still happen with 3.11.4 or newer?

Comment 5 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2013-10-31 18:20:45 UTC
Josh,

still on F18, kernel updated to kernel-3.11.4-101.fc18.x86_64, I can
see no difference, i.e., "acpi_backlight=vendor" is a required part
of the kernel cmdline so as to achieve working backlight controls.

Also when omitted, I can see no messages as in [comment 3].

Will give 3.11.6-100.fc18 a try.

Comment 6 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2013-10-31 18:35:39 UTC
...with no change.

Comment 7 James Boyle 2013-11-14 23:44:14 UTC
I updated to F19 this week.  The backlight keys appear to work with kernel 3.11.7-200.fc19.x86_64.

Comment 8 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2013-11-20 15:24:43 UTC
Still does not work for me without extra config with neither
kernel-3.11.7-100.fc18.x86_64
nor
kernel-3.11.8-100.fc18.x86_64

Comment 9 Rolle 2013-11-29 21:48:12 UTC
The same here with Laptop Fujitsu Lifebook E8420

lspci
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)

Fedora 20 beta, kernel 3.11.9

Comment 10 Fedora End Of Life 2013-12-21 12:38:27 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 18 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 18. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 
'version' of '18'.

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 Fedora version prior to Fedora 18's end of life.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we may not be 
able to fix it before Fedora 18 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 Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior to Fedora 18's end of life.

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 Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 11 Rolle 2013-12-23 01:25:20 UTC
Still present in Fedora 20 released version.

Comment 12 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2014-01-02 13:03:02 UTC
Provided that F18 is passing EOL, just for reference:
no change with kernel-3.11.10-100.fc18.x86_64 either

(going to upgrade soon, will report new observations then)

Comment 13 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2014-01-02 16:49:21 UTC
Updated to F19 and unfortunately observing still the same with
kernel-3.12.5-200.fc19.x86_64.  Haven't tried 3.11.7-200.fc19.x86_64
as per [comment 7] so cannot judge if there was a regression or
there is a misunderstanding about this bug, but definitely a reason
to bump the release version.

Comment 14 Michele Baldessari 2014-01-02 18:55:08 UTC
There are a bunch of acpi changes that might affect Lenovos and certain ACPI events (backlight, etc) (i.e. https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/10/15/776)

Might be worth giving 3.13rc6 kernel a shot: 
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=487242

Comment 15 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2014-01-03 15:47:14 UTC
Updated to F20 and still no change with these:

kernel-3.12.6-200.fc19.x86_64
kernel-3.12.5-302.fc20.x86_64

Re [comment 14]:
Tried kernel-3.13.0-0.rc6.git0.1.fc21.x86_64, too (kernel + kernel-devel
+ kernel-modules-extra), and the situation is not better but worse:
not even "acpi_backlight=vendor" trick helped (another combination
may be required now).

Comment 16 Mike Ruckman 2014-02-21 18:35:46 UTC
Jan,

What desktop environment are you using when you run into this? There's a plethora of "brightness settings don't work" bugs and I'm looking to mark some duplicates.

Thanks!!

Comment 17 Rolle 2014-02-25 14:24:40 UTC
I use Fedora 20 with Gnome 3.10.
Even with the newest kernel-update (3.13) remains the problem.

Comment 18 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2014-03-24 16:01:00 UTC
Mike, desktop environment (as in Gnome, etc.) really does not matter,
as it can be reproduced early in the plymouth already (in my case,
when entering LUKS password).

On the HW side, it is lenovo T530 with integrated Intel graphics
- Xorg:
  Integrated Graphics Chipset: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000,
- lspci:
  00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
          3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)

As an extension to [comment 15], indeed it seems I can't even force
proper backlight control with "acpi_backlight=vendor" (is there
another magic formula?) on 3.13 kernels.  This is what I've just
(re)tested:

kernel-3.12.5-302.fc20.x86_64, "acpi_backlight=vendor" required
kernel-3.13.4-200.fc20.x86_64, not even ^ helps
kernel-3.13.6-200.fc20.x86_64, ditto

Because of this, I am forced to stay with 3.12 one :-/

Comment 19 Mike Ruckman 2014-03-24 16:41:00 UTC
OK, I wasn't sure. I've had experiences where brightness settings work for one DE and not another.

Comment 20 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2014-03-25 11:02:15 UTC
> Because of this, I am forced to stay with 3.12 one :-/

I gave some attempts to acp_osi (Linux, !Windows2012, ...), with
or without "acpi_backlight=vendor", kernel-3.13.6-200.fc20.x86_64.
No success -> for me, the regression so far is even more significant
              with 3.13 kernels

Comment 21 Hans de Goede 2014-04-26 07:43:03 UTC
(In reply to Jan Pokorný from comment #18)
> Mike, desktop environment (as in Gnome, etc.) really does not matter,
> as it can be reproduced early in the plymouth already (in my case,
> when entering LUKS password).

This is to be expected. How these things work in most cases is the brightness keys generate key events and there needs to be some software listening which actually acts on those and makes the changes. In some rare cases the firmware handles this itself and brightness control will already work at the plymouth screen. But normally you cannot expect it to work until you're fully logged in.

Basically there are 2 possible reasons why backlight control does not work:
1) The keys don't generate brightness events
2) The brightness control code is not working

If you log into gnome 3, and press the brightness keys and do not get an overlay showing the brightness status (similar to what you get when doing volume up /down) then 1) is a problem. If you change the brightness through the slider in the upper right corner control menu and that does no work, or there is no slider, then 2 is a problem. Note you may have both problems at once.

Comment 22 Hans de Goede 2014-04-30 09:43:49 UTC
Jan,

Can you please try with a 3.13 kernel in combination with "use_native_backlight=1" on the kernel cmdline, and without any other special kernel parameters ?  I've been researching backlight issues for the last few days and I think that that should do the trick for the T530.

Once you can confirm that that does the trick we can add a DMI based quirk for the T530 making this the default.

Thanks,

Hans

Comment 23 Hans de Goede 2014-04-30 10:09:57 UTC
Oops, correction, please try with: "video.use_native_backlight=1" on the kernel cmdline rather then just "use_native_backlight=1".

Comment 24 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2014-04-30 14:26:51 UTC
Hans, I've tried your suggestion, but it had no effect on ability to use
fn+F{8,9}.

However I finally found out that controlling backlight as such via sysfs
works even with no special parameter specified
(hence point 2. from [comment 21] should be OK):

# cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/max_brightness \
  > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

There may have been a confusion about ability to control the backlight
level as such and achieving it using native dedicated key combination.

This bug report is about the latter (sorry about "adjust brightness
at all" that might raise a confusion), specifically about the regression,
likely in kernel side, whereas formerly (pre-3.13) specifying
"acpi_backlight=vendor" fixed the issue; since 3.13 cannot find any
combination that would achieve the same.

I want to avoid any middle-man (I do not use Gnome, LXDE here) when
I know it used to work on a low-level basis before, even in pure
terminal mode.

Comment 25 poma 2014-04-30 19:07:57 UTC
Possible duplicates - Brightness related:

Brightness adjustment FN keys doesn't work
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=702352

Acer Aspire V5-171-9620 display brightness doesn't change using keyboard Fn keys (but onscreen slider moves)
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=983342

Dell brightness keys register multiple times
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=986653

unable to adjust monitor brightness with nouveua, Toshiba, and 3.11.0 kernel
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=999684

Cannot adjust brightness anymore using Fn keys with F19 x86_64
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1012674

Brightness does not change on Intel graphics (using keys or slider) since about 3.9 kernels
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1025690

Brightness keys stopped working between kernel 3.12.10-300 and 3.13.3-201 on Asus EEE PC
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1067181

T530: Unsupported brightness interface
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1089545

Can't change display brightness on HP EliteBook 8470p
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1093120

Comment 26 Hans de Goede 2014-05-01 08:57:35 UTC
Hi,

(In reply to Jan Pokorný from comment #24)
> Hans, I've tried your suggestion, but it had no effect on ability to use
> fn+F{8,9}.
> 
> However I finally found out that controlling backlight as such via sysfs
> works even with no special parameter specified
> (hence point 2. from [comment 21] should be OK):
> 
> # cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/max_brightness \
>   > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
> 
> There may have been a confusion about ability to control the backlight
> level as such and achieving it using native dedicated key combination.
> 
> This bug report is about the latter (sorry about "adjust brightness
> at all" that might raise a confusion), specifically about the regression,
> likely in kernel side, whereas formerly (pre-3.13) specifying
> "acpi_backlight=vendor" fixed the issue; since 3.13 cannot find any
> combination that would achieve the same.
> 
> I want to avoid any middle-man (I do not use Gnome, LXDE here) when
> I know it used to work on a low-level basis before, even in pure
> terminal mode.

Jan, I'm afraid that avoiding a middle-man simply is not realistic in these days. I know this has worked in the past on some laptop models, but on more and more models the brightness keys are becomgin just keys sending normal keypress events over ps/2. So you usually need something to pick up the events and frob the backlight interface in /sys for things to work.

When you tried with video.use_native_backlight=1 on the kernel cmdline did you try with a middle-man ? If not can you humor me and log into gnome3 with that kernel cmdline option and give things a try? I really expect video.use_native_backlight=1 to work on the T530 when combined with a middle man, and I would like to get this resolved since there are more unhappy T530 owners out there.

Also can you please run this command:

grep '.*' /sys/class/dmi/id/*_* 2> /dev/null

And paste the output here?

Thanks,

Hans

Comment 27 Hans de Goede 2014-05-05 14:50:31 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1089545 ***


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