Battery Icon keep dissapearing

bobo · April 23, 2023, 4:07am

Fresh install of Leap 15.4 and my battery icon randomly dissapears.
Sometimes when I log back out and then back in, it fixes the issue temporarily, until it vanishes again.

How do I fix this ?

nrickert · April 23, 2023, 4:35am

I can’t guess about your computer. However, that happened for a while on an older laptop here. It was because the battery was intermittently failing.

bobo · April 23, 2023, 4:40am

I see. (It’s an old Acer laptop from 2014).

I’ve plugged it into a power source but I’m not seeing any charging icon for this either, would this possibly be related ?

deano_ferrari · April 23, 2023, 5:00am

Desktop environment? What does the following command (run as user) report?

upower -d

bobo · April 23, 2023, 5:02am

The desktop environment is Plasma 5.24.4

upower -d reports the following:

Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_ACAD
native-path: ACAD
power supply: yes
updated: Sun 23 Apr 2023 12:12:35 AM EDT (2889 seconds ago)
has history: no
has statistics: no
line-power
warning-level: none
online: yes
icon-name: ‘ac-adapter-symbolic’

Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT1
native-path: BAT1
vendor: SANYO
model: AP13B3K
serial: 2271
power supply: yes
updated: Sun 23 Apr 2023 01:00:40 AM EDT (4 seconds ago)
has history: yes
has statistics: yes
battery
present: yes
rechargeable: yes
state: charging
warning-level: none
energy: 40.95 Wh
energy-empty: 0 Wh
energy-full: 46.5 Wh
energy-full-design: 53.4 Wh
energy-rate: 14.13 W
voltage: 17.08 V
time to full: 23.6 minutes
percentage: 88%
capacity: 87.0787%
technology: lithium-ion
icon-name: ‘battery-full-charging-symbolic’
History (charge):
1682226040 88.000 charging
History (rate):
1682226040 14.130 charging

Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/DisplayDevice
power supply: yes
updated: Sun 23 Apr 2023 01:00:40 AM EDT (4 seconds ago)
has history: no
has statistics: no
battery
present: yes
state: charging
warning-level: none
energy: 40.95 Wh
energy-full: 46.5 Wh
energy-rate: 14.13 W
time to full: 23.6 minutes
percentage: 88%
icon-name: ‘battery-full-charging-symbolic’

Daemon:
daemon-version: 0.99.13
on-battery: no
lid-is-closed: no
lid-is-present: yes
critical-action: PowerOff

deano_ferrari · April 23, 2023, 5:30am

Perhaps monitor the system journal for any battery related errors…

sudo journalctl -b | grep batt

The next time the battery plasmoid disappears, note if anything is reported.

bobo · April 23, 2023, 5:47am

With no battery icon showing, sudo journalctl -b | grep batt displays this:
Apr 22 23:39:14 localhost kernel: ACPI: battery: Slot [BAT1] (battery present)
Apr 22 23:39:21 localhost systemd[1]: Started Check if mainboard battery is Ok.
Apr 22 23:39:29 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 22 23:39:29 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 23 00:12:35 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: false
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Starting Check if mainboard battery is Ok…
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: check-battery.service: Deactivated successfully.
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Finished Check if mainboard battery is Ok.
Apr 23 01:38:23 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[15286]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 23 01:38:25 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[15286]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: false

Logging out and then back in, the battery icon appears (with power cord in), sudo journalctl -b | grep batt displays the following:
Apr 22 23:39:21 localhost systemd[1]: Started Check if mainboard battery is Ok.
Apr 22 23:39:29 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 22 23:39:29 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 23 00:12:35 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: false
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Starting Check if mainboard battery is Ok…
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: check-battery.service: Deactivated successfully.
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Finished Check if mainboard battery is Ok.
Apr 23 01:38:23 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[15286]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 23 01:38:25 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[15286]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: false

20 or so seconds later, the battery icon dissapears (power cord is still in), I quickly remove the power cord and the battery icon reappears. The ``sudo journalctl -b | grep batt``` command displays this:
Apr 22 23:39:14 localhost kernel: ACPI: battery: Slot [BAT1] (battery present)
Apr 22 23:39:21 localhost systemd[1]: Started Check if mainboard battery is Ok.
Apr 22 23:39:29 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 22 23:39:29 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 23 00:12:35 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[1719]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: false
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Starting Check if mainboard battery is Ok…
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: check-battery.service: Deactivated successfully.
Apr 23 00:57:47 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Finished Check if mainboard battery is Ok.
Apr 23 01:38:23 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[15286]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true
Apr 23 01:38:25 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[15286]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: false
Apr 23 01:41:04 localhost.localdomain plasmashell[15286]: plasma-pk-updates: Is on battery: true

I notice that there is a new event log at the bottom of the latest one (I’ve marked it in bold above).

I don’t understand what this all means.

hui · April 23, 2023, 6:48am

Yeah, this is because you have set the battery icon to only show when relevant. That means when the battery is full the icon dissapears. This is the standard Plasma setting for this icon.

Open the “Status and Notifications” part of your Systray (via the small triangle) → Configure system tray → Entries → battery and Brightness → change to “Always shown”

deano_ferrari · April 23, 2023, 6:50am

I’m not convinced that shows any problem as such. A quick search online does turn up a number of KDE Plasma reports detailing similar intermittent behaviour (mostly focussing on the plasmoid functionality).

FWIW, this long running bug report (refer comment #83 onwards)…
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422111#c83

Do you have tlp installed as well?

deano_ferrari · April 23, 2023, 6:50am

Yes, that could well be it.

bobo · April 23, 2023, 6:52am

I think this is it.
I will monitor that.

Thank you so much.

bobo · April 25, 2023, 12:46am

Unfortunately, the issue persists (with or without power cord).
The battery icon dissapears randomly still.

I’ve been monitoring it since I last posted.

Though currently it’s displayed (I just logged back onto the computer).

I wonder what the issue is.

deano_ferrari · April 25, 2023, 1:02am

Refer to the bug report I linked to.