Screen stays on when I shut the laptop lid

[rconway]

Hi,

I'm running Xubuntu 13.04 (xfce4). When I close the lid the screen stays on. I'd like the screen to switch off when shutting laptop lid - how do I configure this?

Many thanks,
Richard

[Toz]

Can you clarify, when you close the lid, do you want the computer to go into suspend/hibernate mode, or do you want the laptop to stay running but just turn off the screen?

What is the make and model of your laptop?

[rconway]

Hi Toz, thanks for your reply.
I want it to just put the display to sleep/off/blank (basically save some power) with the machine still running. I have used the Power Manager to suspend on lid close (which works fine), but this not what I want as the machine will stop processing. Sure I've done this with other distros.

It's a Dell Latitude E6410 laptop (Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU M 640 @ 2.80GHz).

Richard

[Toz]

Hi Toz, thanks for your reply.
I want it to just put the display to sleep/off/blank (basically save some power) with the machine still running. I have used the Power Manager to suspend on lid close (which works fine), but this not what I want as the machine will stop processing. Sure I've done this with other distros.

It's a Dell Latitude E6410 laptop (Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU M 640 @ 2.80GHz).

Richard

In Power Manager, change the "When the laptop lid is closed" action to "do Nothing" for both the "On AC" and "On Battery" sections. This should prevent the laptop from going to sleep. Once that is done, can you confirm that:
1. the system does not go into a suspend state
2. that the screen turns off when the lid is closed.

[rconway]

Yes, this is where I started.
My settings are:
- When laptop lid is closed = Nothing
- Put display to sleep when computer is inactive for = Never
- Switch off display when computer is inactive for = Never

In this case everything remains on (incl. display) when I close the lid.

However, I've just discovered something significant. With the above settings, if I modify the value of 'Put display to sleep when computer is inactive for' and/or 'Switch off display when computer is inactive for', and the close the lid then it goes off. However, if I then reboot, then the problem is the same again after the reboot - I have to go back into the power settings, tweak one of these values and then the 'lid close' function starts working!

So in summary, after a reboot I have to go into the power settings and change some values to get the 'lid close' behaviour to 'turn on'. Feels like a bug to me. I wonder if anyone else has the same problem?

Richard

[rconway]

Some more information...

1. After reboot, but before logging on, i.e. at the login screen, then the lid close is correctly turning off the screen. Only after login does the problem get introduced.
2. I added a new user as an experiment to check the behaviour with a fresh user's environment - The problem is the same for this new user.
3. Once the 'change something in power manager' tweak has been applied to make the lid close function work correctly, then logging out and back in does not cause the problem to occur in the way that rebooting does.

Richard

[Toz]

Can you post the contents of the file $HOME/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-power-manager.xml after you've changed those settings (before you log out) and again right after you log in before you make any changes? Lets see if they are the same. Those settings are stored there.

[rconway]

Two versions of file:

- before-reboot.xfce4-power-manager.xml - when it's working
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<channel name="xfce4-power-manager" version="1.0">
<property name="xfce4-power-manager" type="empty">
<property name="power-button-action" type="empty"/>
<property name="lid-action-on-ac" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="dpms-on-ac-sleep" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="dpms-on-ac-off" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="lid-action-on-battery" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="critical-power-action" type="uint" value="4"/>
<property name="brightness-on-battery" type="uint" value="9"/>
<property name="dpms-on-battery-sleep" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="dpms-on-battery-off" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="brightness-level-on-ac" type="uint" value="80"/>
</property>
</channel>

- after-reboot.xfce4-power-manager.xml - not working
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<channel name="xfce4-power-manager" version="1.0">
<property name="xfce4-power-manager" type="empty">
<property name="power-button-action" type="empty"/>
<property name="lid-action-on-ac" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="dpms-on-ac-sleep" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="dpms-on-ac-off" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="lid-action-on-battery" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="critical-power-action" type="uint" value="4"/>
<property name="brightness-on-battery" type="uint" value="9"/>
<property name="dpms-on-battery-sleep" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="dpms-on-battery-off" type="uint" value="0"/>
<property name="brightness-level-on-ac" type="uint" value="80"/>
</property>
</channel>

I've diff'ed them and they appear the same.

Another discovery - After reboot, login, in the state where its not working, I can get it working by running...

$ xfce4-power-manager --restart

i.e. no need to do some fake edits in power manager, but instead just restart the process.

Makes no sense to me!

[rconway]

This might be a red herring, but it seems I can simulate the 'works' / 'broken' behaviour by right-clicking the battery icon in the indicator area and selecting Mode -> Normal / Presentation - where 'Presentation' is equivalent to the broken state. But the starting state is always Normal, which is the working state, except immediately after reboot.

[Toz]

Another discovery - After reboot, login, in the state where its not working, I can get it working by running...

$ xfce4-power-manager --restart

i.e. no need to do some fake edits in power manager, but instead just restart the process.

Makes no sense to me!

Try clearing out your sessions cache - maybe somethings not right there:
1. Logout of the gui session and log into the console session on tty1.
2. Execute:

cd .cache
rm -rf sessions

3. Go back to gui login on tty7
4. Login and check.