[Powerdevil] [Bug 383633] New: Turning off power to external monitor suspends laptop and stops video signal to external monitor

[Jonathan Wakely]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383633

            Bug ID: 383633
           Summary: Turning off power to external monitor suspends laptop
                    and stops video signal to external monitor
           Product: Powerdevil
           Version: 5.10.4
          Platform: Fedora RPMs
                OS: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
          Assignee: plasma-devel at kde.org
          Reporter: zilla at kayari.org
  Target Milestone: ---

I have a laptop on AC power with an external monitor connected via DisplayPort.
The laptop lid is closed. Powerdevil is configured to suspend when the lid is
closed, but not when an external monitor is connected.

When I turn off the external monitor (e.g. because I'm going to lunch or
otherwise AFK for a while) my session is locked, the system is suspended, and
the external monitor no longer gets any signal until after I open the laptop
lid to unsuspend and then unlock my session.

Steps to reproduce:

Press power button on external monitor to go to standby.
Press again to turn back on.

Results:

When turning the monitor back on I briefly see the locked session screen,
prompting me for a password to unlock, and then the display goes dark. The
monitor pops up a dialogue saying "Switching to power-save mode" meaning that
there is no signal from the computer. Using the mouse or keyboard does not wake
the system up again, I have to open the laptop lid or press the power button to
get the session unlock screen back. Once unlocked I find that my network
connections have been dropped, so any VPN session is lost and must be
reconnected. This is extremely disruptive.

If I change the Powerdevil settings to "When laptop lid is closed: [Do
nothing]" then this doesn't happen. It seems that turning off to the external
monitor (N.B. just putting it in standby, not actually unplugging it from AC
power) is now interpreted as disconnecting that monitor, so the powerdevil
settings for the closed lid take effect.

This behaviour did not happen with previous versions (I recently upgraded from
powerdevil-5.8.7-1.fc24 to powerdevil-5.10.4-1.fc26.x86_64). Previously turning
the screen off and on again did not suspend, so didn't lock my desktop or drop
network connections. How do I restore that old behaviour?

I do not want putting the  external monitor in standby to be treated as
disconnecting it.

I want to be able to have:

[x] Button events handling
           When laptop lid closed [Suspend]
  [ ] Even when an external monitor is connected

And only suspend when the lid is closed if I really disconnect the external
monitor, i.e. remove the displayport cable, not just put the monitor in
standby.

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