Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
35 Posts
0
53704
Backlight stopped working after update (13.04)
So I'm still on on 13.04 beta 2 and I've been updating daily. After today's update, I was asked to restart and, after the restart, the backlight stopped working. What's worse is that the backlight is stuck in the lowest possible setting. I can barely see enough to type this out. This is not a hardware problem. When I restart the computer the backlight turns on property but burns off when the Ubuntu encryption screen comes up (I'm using full disk encryption). The backlight buttons work and the corresponding bar on the screen moves up and down, but there is no actual change in the backlight. Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a fix yet?
I also filed a bug report with essentially the same information. I hope the issue can be resolved soon, because it is extremely frustrating to try to use the computer like this.
L. J.
32 Posts
0
April 16th, 2013 14:00
I have a XPS12 with the same issue on the login-screen (the brightness is set to level 0 -> backlight completely turned off). However my backlight buttons work so that I can adjust the brightness correctly, but it is still annoying.
cr45h
35 Posts
0
April 16th, 2013 18:00
I wish I could at least adjust it manually but, for me, it's still not working after today's updates.
cr45h
35 Posts
0
April 17th, 2013 16:00
UPDATE: This issue was confirmed by Dell and they are working on a fix. Please follow this bug report for further information: bugs.launchpad.net/.../1169376
L. J.
32 Posts
0
July 29th, 2013 10:00
Did you try shift+Fn+backlight-brightness? I have the XPS12 where the backlight-adjustment works, but I noticed that this shortcut is working as well, although it seems not to be registered by Ubuntu (brightness notification didn't change).
shift+Fn+backlight-brightness also allows me smaller steps (~2%)
SeanBlader
30 Posts
0
July 29th, 2013 10:00
Just got a new Kernel this morning, 3.8.0-27 and no luck on the backlight adjustment working still.
boylenssen
23 Posts
0
July 30th, 2013 01:00
Are there really this many problems with updates or is it not that bad? I hesitate to buy this...as a developer, I love to have the latest release of a Ubuntu version..but how well is it supported by Dell? I expected that before it comes out, the usual things should work like brightness setting and stuff...for Ubuntu this is a major fail, having a specific Ubuntu ultrabook and then still things break after updating/upgrading...
kb4xley
25 Posts
0
July 31st, 2013 12:00
Also, @boylenssen, the pre-loaded XPS13 running Ubuntu 12.04 has working backlight controls.
kb4xley
25 Posts
0
July 31st, 2013 12:00
Here's the latest on the backlight problems:
A quirk patch for all XPS 13 models has now been merged into the upstream mainline Linux tree. There were some ACPI issues upstream that were hampering some of the efforts fo fix this and they have since been reverted. As of Linux kernel version "3.11-rc3", backlight control works on
all three XPS13 models (L321X, L322X HD, and L322X Full-HD).
The backlight problems only affected the Full-HD models, which explains why we were getting mixed results from the field as to whether or not 13.04 was actually broken.
So its finally fixed upstream, and hopefully it will stay that way.
Ubuntu Saucy (13.10) will pick up the fix automatically as soon as it moves to the mainline v3.11 kernel baseline (probably soon, but some time well in advance of the Saucy release in any case).
The fix has also been tagged stable-backport kernels, so it may get picked up by the maintainers of the upstream stable v3.10 and v3.8 trees. It should appear in Linux v3.8.13.6 when that gets released later this week.
Ubuntu Raring's (13.04) v3.8-based kernel is currently carrying an earlier version of the quirk (which only works for non-FHD models), but our maintainer will ensure that Raring picks up the all-models fix in its next update (or the one after, depending on scheduling).
So while there are no exact ETA's on when the backlight will finally be fixed for 13.04 and higher, we can say that it should be very soon.
AntonioRoberts
14 Posts
0
August 19th, 2013 14:00
Entering this command worked for me: echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
AntonioRoberts
14 Posts
0
September 17th, 2013 14:00
I had upgraded to Ubuntu 13.04 and the backlight stopped working. After I upgraded my graphics driver it now works without any additionally tweaking. I got it from here http://01.org/
SeanBlader
30 Posts
0
October 12th, 2013 17:00
Looks like all the backlight issues are worked out and fixed in Ubuntu 13.10. Yay!
TTilus
3 Posts
0
January 28th, 2014 04:00
I'm experiencing this issue. Backlight shuts off during boot, at some point after disk encryption pw. Backlight keys are working (icon displays) except that light does not actually turn on. Trickery with /sys/ and /proc/ and xbacklight don't help.
I'm running 3.11.10 (Debian wheezy, kernel package linux-image-3.11-0.bpo.2-amd64) on L322X Full-HD (see lshw output at http://pastie.org/private/w7wryjv3ebxcisi8oumhuq). Backlight works fine with 3.9.6 (from linux-image-3.9-0.bpo.1-amd64).
TTilus
3 Posts
0
March 5th, 2014 08:00
Got kernel update: 3.12.9 (pkg 3.12-0.bpo.1-amd64). Now backlight is not totally of, only set to really really dim. Otherwise the same. Backlight controls still don't work.
TTilus
3 Posts
0
March 5th, 2014 11:00
Turning "secure boot" off and "load legacy boot" on from BIOS boot settings worked for me. Per https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59841 the 3.12 should be fixed already, but apparently it was not, at least not for me. However, the workaround mentioned was applicable.