Bug 510938

Summary: Powerdevil Crashes and Persistent libddcutil Initialization on Fedora 42
Product: [Plasma] plasmashell Reporter: Kaleb <kaleb.trogdon>
Component: Power management & brightnessAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED DOWNSTREAM    
Severity: crash CC: kaleb.trogdon, nate
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 6.4.5   
Target Milestone: 1.0   
Platform: Fedora RPMs   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: crash
Logs

Description Kaleb 2025-10-23 02:08:27 UTC
Created attachment 186028 [details]
crash

Powerdevil (6.4.5) on Fedora 42 with Plasma 6 is unstable, crashing or exiting unexpectedly. Despite setting POWERDEVIL_NO_DDCUTIL=1 and DdcUtilBackend Enabled=false in powermanagementprofilesrc, libddcutil (2.2.1) continues to initialize, causing issues. Logs show errors like "org.kde.powerdevil.chargethresholdhelper.getthreshold failed" and "org.kde.powerdevil.backlighthelper.brightness failed". Previously, a crash occurred with "ddc_packet_io.c:332: Assertion 'bus_info' failed".
System:
    • OS: Fedora 42 
    • Desktop: KDE Plasma 6 
    • Powerdevil: 6.4.5-1.fc42 
    • ddcutil: 2.2.1-1.fc42 
    • Hardware: 
        ◦ CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core Processor (8 cores, 1 thread/core, max 5053.377 MHz) 
        ◦ GPU: AMD Navi 31 [Radeon RX 7900 XT/7900 XTX/7900 GRE/7900M] (rev c8), AMD Raphael (rev cb) 
        ◦ Monitors: 3 monitors Sceptre Tech Inc Sceptre F24, ASUSTek Computer INC VG27A, Dell Inc. AW2725DF
Steps Tried:
    1. Set POWERDEVIL_NO_DDCUTIL=1 in systemd override and DdcUtilBackend Enabled=false. 
    2. Reinstalled powerdevil and ddcutil. 
    3. Renamed libddcutil.so.5 (caused Powerdevil to fail with status=127). 
    4. Reset powermanagementprofilesrc. 
    5. Added StandardOutput=journal and StandardError=journal to systemd service. 
Attachments:
    • powerdevil.log (journalctl output)
      nothing got printed to powerdevil_debug.log
Steps to Reproduce:
    1. Start plasma-powerdevil: systemctl --user start plasma-powerdevil 
    2. Check status: systemctl --user status plasma-powerdevil 
    3. Monitor logs: journalctl --user -u plasma-powerdevil --since "10 minutes ago" 
Current State:
Powerdevil runs but logs show libddcutil initialization and errors (chargethresholdhelper, backlighthelper). Manual brightness control via xrandr works as a workaround.
Please advise on resolving libddcutil dependency and persistent errors.
Comment 1 Kaleb 2025-10-23 02:09:02 UTC
Created attachment 186029 [details]
Logs
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2025-10-23 16:16:54 UTC
> Oct 22 18:28:23 fedora org_kde_powerdevil[66943]: /usr/libexec/org_kde_powerdevil: error while loading shared libraries: libddcutil.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

This is an issue with the distro. I'd recommend reporting it to the Fedora folks.