[Bug 60989] HAL reports incorrect battery percentages

[John Dong]

Public bug reported:

Ever since the most recent HAL update, GNOME Power Manager and lshal
have been giving me ridiculous values for battery life. It directly
contradicts what acpi -V tells me. For example:

***@jdong-laptop:~$ acpi -V
Battery 1: discharging, 96%, 02:33:40 remaining
Thermal 1: ok, 54.0 degrees C
AC Adapter 1: off-line

-----------

***@jdong-laptop:~$ lshal | grep battery
battery.remaining_time = 14400 (0x3840) (int)
battery.charge_level.percentage = 100 (0x64) (int)
battery.charge_level.rate = 1 (0x1) (int)
battery.charge_level.last_full = 4 (0x4) (int)
battery.charge_level.current = 4 (0x4) (int)
battery.voltage.current = 1 (0x1) (int)
battery.reporting.rate = 1637 (0x665) (int)
battery.reporting.current = 4231 (0x1087) (int)
battery.charge_level.capacity_state = 'ok' (string)
battery.rechargeable.is_discharging = true (bool)
battery.rechargeable.is_charging = false (bool)
battery.is_rechargeable = true (bool)
battery.charge_level.unit = 'mWh' (string)
battery.charge_level.granularity_2 = 473 (0x1d9) (int)
battery.charge_level.granularity_1 = 473 (0x1d9) (int)
battery.charge_level.low = 2590 (0xa1e) (int)
battery.charge_level.warning = 4440 (0x1158) (int)
battery.charge_level.design = 71040 (0x11580) (int)
battery.voltage.design = 14800 (0x39d0) (int)
battery.voltage.unit = 'mV' (string)
battery.reporting.granularity_2 = 32 (0x20) (int)
battery.reporting.granularity_1 = 32 (0x20) (int)
battery.reporting.low = 175 (0xaf) (int)
battery.reporting.warning = 300 (0x12c) (int)
battery.reporting.design = 4800 (0x12c0) (int)
battery.reporting.last_full = 4382 (0x111e) (int)
battery.reporting.unit = 'mAh' (string)
battery.technology = 'LION' (string)
battery.serial = '10320' (string)
battery.model = 'ZB01' (string)
battery.vendor = 'SONY' (string)
battery.present = true (bool)
info.capabilities = {'battery'} (string list)
info.category = 'battery' (string)
battery.type = 'primary' (string)
linux.acpi_path = '/proc/acpi/battery/BAT1' (string)


It continues to report either 100% or 75% until my battery goes dead.

** Affects: hal (Ubuntu)
Importance: Untriaged
Status: Unconfirmed

[John Dong]

Attached a full lshal.

** Attachment added: "lshal"
http://librarian.launchpad.net/4292283/lshal.txt

[John Dong]

Removing debian/patches/00upstream-02-mWh-conversion.patch does fix
this problem for me. Attached another lshal.

** Attachment added: "lshal when patch is reversed."
http://librarian.launchpad.net/4542740/lshal.txt

[John Dong]

Here's what /proc/acpi has to say about my battery.

** Attachment added: "/proc/acpi/battery contents"
http://librarian.launchpad.net/4542743/battery.tar.gz

[Paul Williams]

I can confirm this on an Acer Aspire laptop. I will try your fox
tomorrow. Marked as confirmed.

** Changed in: hal (Ubuntu)
Status: Unconfirmed => Confirmed

[Stefano Costa]

I confirm this too. I'll try your patch. See also
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=285689&highlight=battery+edgy

** Attachment added: "output of lshal on Acer Aspire 1652 WLMi, under Edgy"
http://librarian.launchpad.net/4939950/lshal

[Mirco Briosi]

Same problem on an IBM Z60m, should you need any detailed info, just let
me know...

[Lucas Moreno]

I can confirm this on an Acer Aspire 1692 WLMi

Why this bug has no "high" importance? My battery status reports 100%,
66%, 33% and 0% and no hibernation is taken when the battery level is
critical.

[John Dong]

Mainly because this affects relatively few laptop models, and the "fix"
proposed here will break more laptops than it fixes....

[Stefano Costa]

Yes, but previous versions worked without any problem, so, there has to
be a way to find what's wrong with this version.

[John Dong]

On our laptops yes, but previous versions had incorrect battery
reporting on many other laptops, too. The fix, a corrected metric unit
conversion, unfortunately breaks our laptops but also fixes the other
ones.

[Lucas Moreno]

Is there any solution/workaround to fix this problem? I have still
incorrect battery levels.

I tried compiling HAL without the patch "00upstream-02-mWh-
conversion.patch" but that didn't fix the problem.

[Martin Pitt]

Can you please test the latest Feisty version? It got this patch:

hal (0.5.8.1-4ubuntu2) feisty; urgency=low

* Add debian/patches/00upstream-01-acpi-low-powerlevels.patch:
- Fix ACPI problems with incorrect low current voltage values.
- Patch taken from upstream git 9c99fc03fbac6380032a6678c641a76ef02ad834.
- Closes: LP#66025


** Changed in: hal (Ubuntu)
Status: Confirmed => Needs Info

[Stefano Costa]

Works for me!
Thanks!

Steko

(Acer Aspire 1650)

[Stefano Costa]

Post by Stefano Costa
Works for me!

Uhm, there must be something wrong because the power led is always
blinking and yellow, no matter if AC is connected or not. But percentage
is correct.

[Martin Pitt]

*** This bug is a duplicate of bug 66025 ***

Post by Stefano Costa
Uhm, there must be something wrong because the power led is always
blinking and yellow, no matter if AC is connected or not. But percentage
is correct.

Ok, but that cannot be due to that hal patch. Any idea what else
changed?

Thanks for testing!


** This bug has been marked a duplicate of bug 66025
gnome-power-manager does not update often enough, only updates every 25% of battery charge