Power Manager Brightness not clickable

This bug is an upstream one and it would be quite helpful if somebody experiencing it could send the bug the to the people writing the software. You can learn more about how to do this for various upstreams at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream. Thanks in advance!

Triaged: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=612399

derlars, it may be helpful to the developers to have the apport information. Could you please run this comand in a terminal "apport-collect 535097"

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here you go. There is an upstream patch available, but it breaks the compile process.

Paul Li, upstream claims your patch is not working:

patch can't be applied automatically. Upon manual application, the compiling
doesn't work:
make[3]: Betrete Verzeichnis
'/home/lars/Desktop/gnome-power-manager-2.29.91/applets/brightness'
  CC brightness-applet.o
brightness-applet.c: In function ‘gpm_applet_create_popup’:
brightness-applet.c:598: error: ‘GtkObject’ has no member named ‘flags’

Could you please work with upstream on it?

I've just upgraded gnome-power-manager to version 2.29.91-0ubuntu8 -bug persists.

Please see below information from Paul Li:

To compile this package successfully, should disable -DGSEAL_ENABLE in Makefile or configure.ac as well.

In gnome-power-manager_2.29.91-0ubuntu5 or newer, the line “GTK_WIDGET_UNSET_FLAGS (applet->popup, GTK_TOPLEVEL);” disappeared and result in the behavior is abnormal.
         GTK_WIDGET_UNSET_FLAGS (applet->popup, GTK_TOPLEVEL) can turns off GTK_TOPLEVEL widget flags.

Maybe there is better approach, but this actually works here.

Hi Paul,

thanks for the advise - I was able to compile and make install it after uninstalling the original gnome-power-manager-package. However, the brightness panel doesn't show up in the "add to panel"-dialog. From the installation process I noticed, that the applets are copied to /usr/share/local/gnome-2.0/ui, while the rest is in /usr/share/gnome-2.0/ui. I moved them over, but they still don't show up. Any hints?

Bug known upstream so setting Triaged.

Hi derLars,

    I didn't meet this problem and did you change the install files or rules in debian directory? Maybe you can move gnome-brightness-applet to /usr/lib/gnome-power-manager/, this is the right place of this applet.

Best Regards
Paul Li

Hi Paul,

no solution there, that directory doesn't exist on ubuntu... hrmmm. Any other ideas, why the Applet might not be listed?

Best Regards,
Lars

Hi Lars,

    If you install the gnome-power-manager by default, gnome-brightness-applet will be installed in /usr/lib/gnome-power-manager/. You can try this by 'sudo apt-get install' in lucid and you can select brightness applet from gnome-panel.If you cann't find this directory in your system, I think you have modified something during your building package steps and also you can try to new this directory and move gnome-brightness-applet here, but this is only a test.

Regards
Paul Li

I've recently upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04 (amd64). The icon for the brightness applet respond to the mouse fine (I can hover and use the middle roll on the mouse to raise/lower brightness - it does tell me it "Cannot get laptop brightness" but is able to change brightness).

I can manually set the brightness by manipulating /proc/acpi/video/UVGA/LCD/brightness.

Output from /proc/acpi/video/UVGA/LCD/brightness
levels: 20 24 28 32 37 43 50 59 69 81 95
current: 95

The slider doesn't seem to get the mouse clicks. It acts as if you have clicked completely outside this area. It's just like when you click on the wireless and then click completely away from it. The wireless drop down disappears but nothing else happens (the mouse click is absorbed)

Ubuntu 10.04
LTS Release: 10.04.

gnome-power-manager:
  Installed: 2.30.0-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 2.30.0-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 2.30.0-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://mirror.optus.net/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

This is a Compaq Presario V6503AU. AMD Turion x2 processor, 4G memory. Running 64bit version of Ubuntu.

Workarounds:

Desktop: just hover your mouse over the icon and use the middle scroll button to raise/lower brightness (don't click because the drop down slider doesn't work)

Terminal: cat /proc/acpi/video/UVGA/LCD/brightness
(you may have to look around in /proc/acpi/video)

It will look something like this (probably with different numbers):
levels: 20 24 28 32 37 43 50 59 69 81 95
current: 95

Pick a number and then:
sudo su
echo THE_NUMBER_YOU_PICKED > /proc/acpi/video/UVGA/LCD/brightness
exit

for me brightness changes immediately

Workaround:

Click on the icon.
Use the up and down KEYBOARD arrows to adjust brightness (slider moves appropriately).
Click anywhere to close the slider.

There's nothing wrong with the applets ability to handle brightness. There's something wrong with passing mouse clicks to the slider.

Has been reported upstream as https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=612399

Hi,

Quickly I comment you that:

- No.. with the default ATI driver the brightness applet does not work too. I have not installed the privative ATI driver.
- It happens with desktop effects enabled and also if it are disabled.
- I also cannot hover and use the middle roll on the mouse to raise/lower brightness.. Still worse: Just hovering over the brightness applet makes the whole computer to crash (it freezes). I then have to take off the power wire (the laptop has not restart button).
- Perhaps a hint: If I try to change screen brightness directly at gnome-power-preferences... Same thing, the whole computer also freezes just hovering the cursor over its respective slide.

My bug info it's at the duplicate: Bug #572226.

The following message does appear when trying to fill a bug using ubuntu-bug from a terminal, regarding gnome-power-preferences:

~$ ubuntu-bug gnome-power-preferences
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module": libpk-gtk-module.so: no se puede abrír el archivo de objeto compartido: No existe el fichero ó directorio

The bug it's that the whole SYSTEM FREEZES when I try to adjust screen brightness by dragging the slider at gnome-power-preferences in System > Preferences.

Also I can't adjust the brightness of the monitor by using the brightness applet, at all.

Another workaround; after clicking applet icon right click it again, now controlling with mouse should work.

I tested patch above and it fixes the problem for me. Funny thing, this time if you right click on applet icon it sticks to the screen and only way to dismiss it is to click icon again.

I've found a way of making the applet scroll bar respond to left mouse clicks
1 - Left click on the icon (scroll bar appears)
2 - Right Click on the icon (menu appears)
3 - Select 'Move' (menu disappear - scroll bar is still visible - mouse turns into hand)
4 - Left click to place the icon exactly where it was (mouse turns back to pointer - scroll bar is still visible)
The scroll bar now responds to all left mouse clicks and drags until the scroll bar disappears

Has to be done each time to get the left mouse clicks working.

I've made a personal build of gnome-power-manager with fixes to two bugs; #535097 and #261450.
If you feel like experimenting, you can add related ppa via "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:auselen/ppa", then "sudo apt-get update" and finally "sudo apt-get upgrade". On a fresh system, this should just change g-p-m.

Thanks for the work, Ali.

I've updated my Dell Studio XPS 1640 with your version, but no good. I still can't change the brightness of my screen with the brightness-applet. On a sidenote, the applet shows a red "not-available"-circle across the icon, so I guess some check for reading the current brightness failed. This is backed up through the fact, that the applet's slider is on 0 (absolutely down), while my screen's brightness is on a high setting.

Sorry to hear that...

If you are interested in debugging the brightness applet, easiest way for me was;

mkdir gpm; cd gpm
apt-get source gnome-power-manager
cd gnome-power-manager-2.30.0
./configure
cd applets/brightness/
make

If this works, there will be "gnome-brightness-applet" binary in the same directory. (if some packages are missing it shouldn't be that hard to figure out)

You can replace regular applet with yours by; first removing brightness applet from panel by right clicking and selecting "Remove From Panel". Run your version of brightness applet. Then re add brightness applet to panel just as you would add the regular one (right click, add to panel, brightness applet) . This time your version of brightness applet will be running on panel, instead of the normal one. You will probably see some prints. So the idea is, if your version of the applet is already working, system will add it to the panel rather than starting the regular one.

You can add some more printfs in the code and try to findout what the problem is... for you :)

Thank you Ali!

... for me (Dell Inspiron 1525n) the ...ppa3 package slider works much better and I would consider it usable.

Yet when playing with it (i.e. Dragging) sometimes the dragging state gets confused and the slider follows the mouse even though the mouse button has been released. Playing further will toggle back up expected behavior. I haven't been able to figure out what click/motion combination will trigger/toggle the behavior.

To me this is acceptable but I think for a polished desktop experience (i.e. to bridge the chasm) this still needs to be fixed by someone.

Cheers,
David

The workaround in comment #33 works for me; the one listed in comment #34 doesn't. I am using Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit on a Toshiba Satellite A505-S6960.