Comment 1 Neil MacLeod (reporter) 2008-01-11 22:01:45 UTC

Renaming the file

/usr/lib/mce/modules/libfilter-brightness-als.so

and rebooting will ensure the N810 always thinks it is in permanent darkness so
the screen remains bright at all times and the hardware keyboard is always lit.

Renaming this file also appears to prevent the boot progress bar from appearing
- I guess the code handling the display of the progress bar panics now that the
above file can't be found (perhaps it should be a little more resilient?)

I don't have a N810 to test but try editing /etc/mce/mce.ini, under
[Modules]->Modules, remove filter-brightness-als instead of moving the actual
lib file.

Removing filter-brightness-als in /etc/mce/mce.ini (on n810) works
just fine (well, it works for me, with no noticable sideeffects,
but YMMV and all that :-) - just reboot, and it takes effect.

Yippeee, no more annoying screen dimming when the light-sensor
is obscured or is moved between shadows and bright lights :-)

I've even considered taping over the damn thing, to avoid the flicker
(that's how annoying it is ...), but a software solution is of
course much better, especially if you wanna use the camera ;-)

... and with advanced-backlight installed:
https://garage.maemo.org/projects/adv-backlight/,
you can even regain full control over the backlight level
(creates an extra icon in the status bar).  Grrreat.

advanced-backlight provides all 127 levels (I think, a lot anyway),
which IMHO is a bit too much, but I can live with that 4 now :-)

As an added bonus, the advanced-backlight status bar icon can (almost)
replace the standard Display and Sound icons, potentially saving an icon.

You do loose a little functionality (mainly setting of the dimming timeouts),
though, so 4 now I've kept the standard Display icon at the far left
(so that it gets "swapped out" first), but the standard Sound icon
is now gone on my n810, keeping the # of icons the same :-)
Maybe I'll even lose the Display icon as well,
I don't change the timeouts that often anyway.

On n800 with OS2007, even the brightest level wasn't quite enough when outside
in the summer sun, even here in usually-not-so-sunny DK, so the increase in
maximum brightness is fine, but the dimmest setting is IMO _way_ to bright.

IMHO, the brightness control in OS2007 was way better,
so lets get some more brightness levels back, please ...

Oh, yeah, and a "don't use the light-sensor" switch
as well, or maybe even a level select or slider to set
the light-sensor sensitivity (from "disabled" to "full").

Comment 4 Neil MacLeod (reporter) 2008-06-25 19:19:45 UTC

This bug seems to be fixed in Diablo - the light sensor on the N810 appears to
be more reliable and less "twitchy" than in previous releases.... I still cover
the bloody thing with the thumb on my left hand though, so will be filing an
enhancement request so that the light sensor can be ignored (please thrash the
eedjit who positioned the light sensor in the top left corner!) :)

Comment 5 Neil MacLeod (reporter) 2008-06-25 19:33:12 UTC

I see this is already an RFE for an option to disable the light sensor, which
kinda renders my new RFE bug 3301 somewhat unecessary! I feel very stoopid. :)

I do think the "stability" of the ambient light sensor has improved in Diablo,
which is great, but I still think we need a "Disable Light Sensor" option due
to the incredibly bad positioning of the light sensor (right under the thumb on
my left hand!)

Comment 6 Neil MacLeod (reporter) 2008-06-25 19:33:29 UTC

*** Bug 3301 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7 Ryan Abel 2008-08-18 04:20:46 UTC

Changing severity to enhancement per summary.

Still valid in 4.1.3 (5.2008.43-7) maemo release

Comment 9 Andre Klapper 2009-09-25 15:29:00 UTC

First of all:
This enhancement request is a WONTFIX for Diablo as Diablo is in maintenance
mode and Nokia will only provide bugfixes for critical issues if at all (The
Mer project aims to provide a community backport of Fremantle for N8x0 devices.
See http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer for more information).

I'm very interested here in user feedback once the N900 has launched and if
this works better for you.

(In reply to comment #9)
Disappointing finding this bug related to N810. This is still a problem with
the N900. Similar behavior as OP describes, had it happen even while typing
(ie. no thumbs on the screen). Actually looking at the manual now I see that
the light sensor is moved to the top left of the device so you'd be hard
pressed to cover it with your thumb anyways.

I can confirm that on the N900, too.
There is a thread related to this:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=450607
Maybe someone should change the hardware to N900 instead of N810...

I can also confirm this on the N900, its great that the ambient light sensor
does its job but if I have the brightness turned all the way down surely my
setting should override.

We used to have this user switchable. Let's investigate if we could still have
it such.

(In reply to comment #13)
> We used to have this user switchable. Let's investigate if we could still have
> it such. 
> 

That would be great, as the N900 requires two-hands to operate, or if using it
left-handed when the phone is sitting on a desk, the placement of the light
sensor on N900 causes the light-sensor to get covered up, the N900 then thinks
it is dark, which in a well-lit room or outdoors in daytime makes the screen
difficult-to-impossible to read.

Comment 15 Andre Klapper 2012-03-24 11:45:54 UTC

The Maemo 5 User Interface and Maemo 5 platform components (e.g. libraries)
used for the N900 are considered stable by Nokia and it seems that there are no
plans for official updates currently, hence nobody plans to work on this
enhancement/wishlist request. 
(And in case you feel like discussing this situation: Nokia Customer Care or
http://talk.maemo.org would be the place to do so as you will not reach Nokia
officials in this community bugtracker - though all of this is really no news.)

Reflecting this status by setting RESOLVED WONTFIX for this
enhancement/wishlist request (see
https://bugs.maemo.org/page.cgi?id=fields.html#status for status explanations).

There is a small chance for issues in those Maemo components that are open
source: Contributed patches could be included and made available in the Maemo 5
Community CSSU updates. 
The Maemo CSSU project is run by a small team of volunteers; see
http://wiki.maemo.org/CSSU for more information.
So in case that you can provide a patch that fixes the reported problem, please
feel encouraged to file a request under
https://bugs.maemo.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Maemo%205%20Community%20SSU .
Please note: The Maemo CSSU project is not related in any way to Nokia.


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