Spurious sleep/KDE screen-lock on Feisty laptop

[halfer]

Dear all

I recently upgraded from Dapper (which is excellent) to Feisty, via Edgy. When I got Feisty working, I found that the KDE screen would be locked every eight seconds or so. Thinking there must have been problems with the upgrade (it wasn't trouble-free) I obtained a Feisty disc and did a clean install. Unfortunately this was worse: the boot process is repeatedly interrupted by the machine going to sleep for no reason, and powering back up lets the machine accomplish a bit more of the process, before going to sleep again!

A colleague of mine (more knowledgable than I) found that a sleep event was being recorded in /var/log/acpid. He renamed /etc/acpi/sleep.sh which at least allowed the boot process to complete properly. However I am back to the KDE screen locking every so many seconds. A sample snippet of acpid is thus:

[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] BEGIN HANDLER MESSAGES
/bin/sh: /etc/acpi/sleep.sh: not found
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] END HANDLER MESSAGES
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] action exited with status 127
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] completed event "button/sleep SBTN 00000080 00000032"
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] received event "button/sleep SBTN 00000080 00000033"
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] notifying client 4296[107:114]
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] notifying client 4774[0:0]
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] executing action "/etc/acpi/sleep.sh"
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] BEGIN HANDLER MESSAGES
/bin/sh: /etc/acpi/sleep.sh: not found
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] END HANDLER MESSAGES
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] action exited with status 127
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] completed event "button/sleep SBTN 00000080 00000033"
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] received event "button/sleep SBTN 00000080 00000034"
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] notifying client 4296[107:114]
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] notifying client 4774[0:0]
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] executing action "/etc/acpi/sleep.sh"
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] BEGIN HANDLER MESSAGES
/bin/sh: /etc/acpi/sleep.sh: not found
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] END HANDLER MESSAGES
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] action exited with status 127
[Wed Jun 20 21:58:50 2007] completed event "button/sleep SBTN 00000080 00000034"
[Wed Jun 20 21:59:08 2007] client connected from 4774[0:0]
[Wed Jun 20 21:59:08 2007] 1 client rule loaded
[Wed Jun 20 21:59:18 2007] exiting

First, this didn't ever happen in Windows, nor in Dapper - it just happens in Feisty. Also I should point out that my colleague has tried giving me a boot-mode featuring a keyword of "noacpi", which did not make a difference. Lastly, if I boot into a recovery (single-user) mode, the problem does not happen (even if I boot KDE, from where I type, via kdm). I have tried to turn off everything in the BIOS to do with power management to no avail.

I have a much-loved Dell Latitude L400 laptop, 256Mb RAM, 800MHz PIII processor. It has a power button, and a lid closed detection button. Any ideas?

halfer

[SheeEttin]

Re: Spurious sleep/KDE screen-lock on Feisty laptop

K Menu > System Settings > Desktop > Screen saver. Check the values at the bottom.
(And by the way, the kernel option is "acpi=off", not "noacpi".)

[halfer]

Re: Spurious sleep/KDE screen-lock on Feisty laptop

Thanks SheeEttin. I find that the screen-saver is not enabled in the section you specified. This would of course have caused screen-lock behaviour, but not (I presume) the sleep behaviour before KDE has booted up.

Your pointer on the correct syntax for turning off ACPI was most helpful. I corrected it, and that option now works properly. This means that I am a step closer to solving this issue. However I'd like to get ACPI operational too (if only to help Kubuntu work out of the box first time for other users, by highlighting a required fix).

Given that the problem now appears to be this module, have you ideas as to what might be wrong with it? I was thinking along the lines of dodgy keyboard layout setting (although all the usual suspect keys are working fine).

[halfer]

Re: Spurious sleep/KDE screen-lock on Feisty laptop

Can I ping this topic, folks, to see if anyone might have suggestions? Kubuntu is certainly the best consumer-oriented distro I've tried, but little hangups like this are frustrating when I just want to use the laptop

Any takers?

[halfer]

Re: Spurious sleep/KDE screen-lock on Feisty laptop

I have an idea what the problem might be. I installed Kubuntu FF onto one laptop, then transferred the 2.5" disc to another laptop, as the latter (my Dell L400) has no CD-ROM drive. I suspect therefore that the battery data has been recorded for my old laptop. Does anyone know where ACPI keeps this, and how to force a re-detect?

Please reply, someone?

[SheeEttin]

Re: Spurious sleep/KDE screen-lock on Feisty laptop

I've got nothing.
If you're not too attached to it, you could try reinstalling. That may fix it.

[halfer]

Re: Spurious sleep/KDE screen-lock on Feisty laptop

Thanks for the response, although I don't think that will help. Having encountered the issue on my first upgrade, and then subsequently on a fresh install, a third try is unlikely to be different. I may invest in a "media cable" and CD drive from eBay, which will give me a CD drive I can actually boot from, and reinstall from there. In the interim, I have read good things about Mandriva, so I'll see how easy that is, when I've got the energy and inclination for a system reinstall!

I appreciate your taking the time to reply.