Powertop wont work, it says every time I start it

Bug #855348 reported by johnlon
78
This bug affects 17 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
powertop (Fedora)
Fix Released
Undecided
powertop (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

loaded 14 prior measurements cannot load from file /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop and that happens every time I try to use it

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: powertop 1.97-2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-11.18-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-11-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Sep 21 09:29:39 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Beta i386 (20110909)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: powertop
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Revision history for this message
In , Mohammed (mohammed-redhat-bugs) wrote :

Description of problem:
everytime i start powertop it complains like this:

Loaded 75 prior measurements
Cannot load from file /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop

i checked the file. its there but it isnt.
ll /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop
ls: cannot access /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop: No such file or directory
[root@laptop powertop]# cd /var/cache/powertop/
[root@laptop powertop]# ll
total 92K
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 92K Apr 19 19:47 saved_results.powertop

and
drwx------ 2 root root 4.0K Apr 19 19:00 powertop

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

1.97
How reproducible:
everytime

Steps to Reproduce:
1.start powertop
2.quit to view full error message
3.

Actual results:
no idea if it is harmful to the program

Expected results:
no error messages

Additional info:

Revision history for this message
In , Mohammed (mohammed-redhat-bugs) wrote :

ok - so the file is missing - why is powertop asking for a non-existent file ?

Revision history for this message
johnlon (jakewc2) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in powertop (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Vincent (vinnl) wrote :

I get the same message, it does, however, work:

$ sudo powertop
Loaded 11 prior measurements
Cannot load from file /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop
Leaving PowerTOP

It doesn't save the tunables I switched, though.

Revision history for this message
Oscar Tiderman (oscar-tiderman) wrote :

I had the same complaint from powertop, just 'sudo touch' -ed the file and complaint's gone. It still doesn't seem to write anything to the file though.

Revision history for this message
In , Phoenix (phoenix-redhat-bugs) wrote :

I have the problem too.

Revision history for this message
In , Jaroslav (jaroslav-redhat-bugs) wrote :

It seems you didn't run the initial calibration. If you are running on NB, disconnect AC and run:
# powertop --calibrate
Then let the powertop to collect enough data (approx. 1 hour). After then it will show approx. wattage for each process / device. When you exit, it saves its state and the message should gone.

It is only warning and it should be ignored, if it annoy you and you can't/don't want to run the calibration just:
# touch /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop

Maybe the wording of the message is a bit confusing, I will forward this to upstream.

Revision history for this message
In , Jaroslav (jaroslav-redhat-bugs) wrote :

> It is only warning and it should be ignored

Of course s/should/can/

Revision history for this message
In , Jaroslav (jaroslav-redhat-bugs) wrote :

Created attachment 539750
Proposed patch

Revision history for this message
In , Fedora (fedora-redhat-bugs) wrote :

powertop-1.98-2.fc16 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 16.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/powertop-1.98-2.fc16

Revision history for this message
In , Fedora (fedora-redhat-bugs) wrote :

powertop-1.98-2.fc15 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 15.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/powertop-1.98-2.fc15

Revision history for this message
In , Fedora (fedora-redhat-bugs) wrote :

Package powertop-1.98-2.fc16:
* should fix your issue,
* was pushed to the Fedora 16 testing repository,
* should be available at your local mirror within two days.
Update it with:
# su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing powertop-1.98-2.fc16'
as soon as you are able to.
Please go to the following url:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2011-16704/powertop-1.98-2.fc16
then log in and leave karma (feedback).

Revision history for this message
In , Jaroslav (jaroslav-redhat-bugs) wrote :

*** Bug 751578 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
In , Onuralp (onuralp-redhat-bugs) wrote :

Calibration Now Working Thank you

root@Fedora16Verne onuralp# powertop --calibrate
Loaded 0 prior measurements
Starting PowerTOP power estimate calibration
Calibrating idle
Calibrating: disk usage
Calibrating backlight
.... device /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
.... device /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
.... device /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video1/brightness
.... device /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video2/brightness
Calibrating idle
Calibrating: CPU usage on 1 threads
Calibrating: CPU usage on 4 threads
Calibrating: CPU wakeup power consumption
Calibrating: CPU wakeup power consumption
Calibrating: CPU wakeup power consumption
Calibrating USB devices
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb1/power/control
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb2/power/control
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1/power/control
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/2-1/power/control
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.3/power/control
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.4/power/control
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/2-1.5/power/control
.... device /sys/bus/usb/devices/2-1.1/power/control
Calibrating radio devices
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill4/soft
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/soft
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill1/soft
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill4/soft
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/soft
.... device /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill1/soft
Finishing PowerTOP power estimate calibration
Parameters after calibration:

Parameter state
----------------------------------
Value Name
 0.50 alsa-codec-power (15)
 0.00 backlight (4)
 0.00 backlight-boost-100 (8)
 0.00 backlight-boost-40 (6)
 0.00 backlight-boost-80 (7)
 0.00 backlight-power (5)
100.00 base power (45)
 1.56 cpu-consumption (3)
39.50 cpu-wakeups (2)
 0.00 disk-operations (48)
 0.20 disk-operations-hard (47)
 0.56 gpu-operations (46)
 0.00 p1p1-link-100 (21)
 0.00 p1p1-link-1000 (22)
 0.00 p1p1-link-high (23)
 0.00 p1p1-packets (24)
 0.00 p1p1-powerunsave (20)
 0.00 p1p1-up (19)
 0.00 radio:hci0 (16)
 0.00 radio:hp-wifi (17)
 0.00 radio:phy0 (18)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:00.0 (31)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:01.0 (32)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:02.0 (33)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:1a.0 (34)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:1b.0 (35)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:1c.0 (36)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:1c.1 (37)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:1d.0 (38)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:1f.2 (39)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:1f.3 (40)
 0.00 runtime-0000:00:1f.6 (41)
 0.00 runtime-0000:01:00.1 (42)
 0.00 runtime-0000:02:00.0 (43)
 0.00 runtime-0000:03:00.0 (44)
 0.10 usb-device-0408-03b2 (13)
 0.10 usb-device-046d-c526 (12)
 0.10 usb-device-12d1-1037 (14)
 0.10 usb-device-148f-1000 (11)
 0.10 usb-device-1d6b-0002 (9)
 0.10 usb-device-8087-0020 (10)
 0.00 wlan0-link-100 (27)
 0.00 wlan0-link-1000 (28)
 0.00 wlan0-link-high (29)
 0.00 wlan0-packets (30)
 0.00 wlan0-powerunsave (26)
 0.00 wlan0-up (25)

Score: 0.0 ( 0.0)
Guess: 102.6
Actual: 0.0
----------------------------------
Leaving PowerTOP

Revision history for this message
In , Fedora (fedora-redhat-bugs) wrote :

powertop-1.98-2.fc16 has been pushed to the Fedora 16 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Revision history for this message
In , Fedora (fedora-redhat-bugs) wrote :

powertop-1.98-2.fc15 has been pushed to the Fedora 15 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Revision history for this message
Drew Scott Daniels (drewdaniels) wrote :

A patch was proposed at:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.power-management.powertop/2170
It says that if the file exists then it will write to it.

It seems that a powertop --calibrate may be required after an empty file is created to get benifit from it. E.g. "sudo touch /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop" as suggested. Note, you want to make sure of the permissions of this file, especially on multi-user systems.

powertop --calibrate turns things on and off to test power usage. One suggestion said to let it run for an hour or so after and it will show estimates in a new column.

Changed in powertop (Fedora):
importance: Unknown → Undecided
status: Unknown → Fix Released
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