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Physical power button does nothing when button-power is set to hibernate

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
52/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
c, linux
Domain
desktop, operating-systems

Research direction

Reproduce the behavior through csd-media-keys with button-power set to hibernate, using the listed gsettings, systemd-inhibit, and journalctl commands. Trace how the daemon handles the physical KEY_POWER event and its low-level inhibitor. Done means the selected hibernate action reaches logind, or the inhibitor is released when the action cannot be handled.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

  • Linux Mint 22.3, Cinnamon 6.6.7
  • cinnamon-settings-daemon 6.6.4
  • ThinkPad T480
  • Kernels tested: 6.17.0-23 and 6.17.0-35
  • button-power is 'hibernate'
  • Logind receives Power key pressed short
  • csd-media-keys holds handle-power-key as a blocking inhibitor
  • No hibernation attempt follows
  • systemctl hibernate works and resumes successfully
  • PowerKeyIgnoreInhibited=yes cannot override low-level key inhibitors by
    design

cinnamon-power-button-issue-diagnostics.txt

Expected result:
Cinnamon calls logind's Hibernate method and the machine hibernates.

Actual result:
logind records "Power key pressed short", but no Hibernate method call or
hibernation service activation follows.

Additional isolation:

  • The input device emits EV_KEY / KEY_POWER press and release events.
  • CanHibernate returns "yes" for the active desktop user after correcting
    Mint's polkit policy.
  • pkcheck authorizes org.freedesktop.login1.hibernate for the running
    csd-media-keys process.
  • Restarting csd-media-keys does not change the result.
  • Removing XF86PowerOff from the generic shutdown keybinding does not change
    the result.
  • Setting button-power to "nothing" and handling KEY_POWER with a dedicated
    evdev system service successfully invokes systemctl hibernate.

Minimal reproduction:

gsettings set org.cinnamon.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-power hibernate
gsettings get org.cinnamon.settings-daemon.plugins.power button-power
systemd-inhibit --list --no-pager
journalctl -f -u systemd-logind

Briefly press the physical power button. The journal records the press, but nothing else happens.

Recommendation for Mint:

either make Cinnamon reliably execute the selected action, or release its low-level inhibitor when it cannot handle that action.

A local evdev-based workaround succeeds, but it should not be presented as the upstream fix. acpi_listen did not receive this event on the tested system.

Dominant language
C
Stars
70
Forks
78
No merged PRs in 30d

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