#1113936 powerdevil: PowerDevil periodically pokes DPMS while the screen is off

Package:
powerdevil
Source:
powerdevil
Description:
Global power saver settings.
Submitter:
Heikki Levanto
Date:
2025-09-04 12:04:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1113936#5
Date:
2025-09-04 12:02:57 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

   * What led up to the situation?
After upgrading to Debian Trixie, I noticed that the usb hub in my monitor
was switching on periodically, when the screen was off. This caused the
backlight that I have plugged in the hub to blink, approx 20 seconds off,
5 second on. I have seen similar things in Bookworm, but only a few times
an hour.

To make the debugging even more confusing, this seemed to happen randomly,
typically after I had been at the computer for a while. I finally traced
that to the fact that the issue did not happen if I was playing music on
Audacious.  I did not see anything on D-Bus or other places that might
trigger the power-ups.

With the help of ChatGpt, I found a workaround:
 editing ~/.config/powermanagementprofilesrc to set [AC][DimDisplay] idleTime=0
fixed the problem, the backlight is not getting on any more.

I tried to file this directly to KDE, see
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509100
but KDE refused it, as being too old version, and because you like to get
the first reports directly. There may be useful info in that bug.

I don't think it matters, but my monitor is BenQ PD3200U