Bug 514932 - Critical and low battery notifications appear when charging a laptop
Summary: Critical and low battery notifications appear when charging a laptop
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: Notifications (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.5.5
Platform: Neon Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2026-01-22 11:08 UTC by Jay
Modified: 2026-01-23 01:07 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
upower -d output (2.54 KB, text/plain)
2026-01-22 22:06 UTC, Jay
Details

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Description Jay 2026-01-22 11:08:49 UTC
SUMMARY
Power management notification and sounds appears when charging is happening, if 'show a message in a popup' is set for 'battery critical' and 'battery low', which should only happen when not plugged in.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open Settings > Power Management > Advanced Power Settings and set a value for low and critical level
2. Open Settings > Notifications > Application Settings > Power Management and set in 'battery critical' and 'battery low' to 'show a message in a pop-up' and 'play a sound'
3. Allow the laptop battery to go below critical battery level
4. Plug in charger

OBSERVED RESULT
Popup appears and sound played when critical and low battery levels are reached

EXPECTED RESULT
Popup and sound shouldn't appear or be played

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: KDE Neon 24.04
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.22.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1
Comment 1 Harald Sitter 2026-01-22 15:44:32 UTC
I am not sure that makes sense. If you supply less wattage than is being consumed you may drain the battery even when plugged in.
Comment 2 Jay 2026-01-22 16:08:24 UTC
When my battery is full, i unplug it from charge. I get the popup notification for 'battery critical' and 'battery low' as the battery level decreases. I plug it in and as the battery level is increasing, i still get the same 'battery critical' and 'battery low' pop notification. These notification shouldn't be popping up if the battery is being charged.
Comment 3 TraceyC 2026-01-22 21:20:00 UTC
Can I ask you to give us the output of `upower -b` at the time the bug is happening so we can see what data Plasma is getting from the system? Thanks.
Comment 4 Jay 2026-01-22 22:06:49 UTC
Created attachment 188792 [details]
upower -d output

Here is the output from 'upower -d', as there is no -b argument listed in the help, when low level popup appeared while charging.
Comment 5 Harald Sitter 2026-01-23 00:13:07 UTC
> I plug it in and as the battery level is increasing, i still get the same 'battery critical' and 'battery low' pop notification. These notification shouldn't be popping up if the battery is being charged.

The notification makes perfect sense with your

    time to full:        19.2 hours

Like I said, if your battery isn't getting as much juice as is required by your system you may still be draining your battery even when plugged in. That seems very likely with a time to full of 19 hours. You may briefly go above the threshold and then lose charge to drop below the threshold again. Each time triggering a notification because your battery is draining in that moment.
Comment 6 Jay 2026-01-23 00:59:58 UTC
(In reply to Harald Sitter from comment #5)
> Like I said, if your battery isn't getting as much juice as is required by
> your system you may still be draining your battery even when plugged in.
> That seems very likely with a time to full of 19 hours. You may briefly go
> above the threshold and then lose charge to drop below the threshold again.
> Each time triggering a notification because your battery is draining in that
> moment.

So am i to understand that if my battery was able to fully charge in a reasonable amount of time, this behavior wouldn't happen?

In my view, if state = charging, as show in the upower output and shown in the icon in the system tray, such a notification shouldn't happen. I also don't see the percentage amount go below the threshold after it was reaching it, so then this behavior doesn't make sense to me.
Comment 7 TraceyC 2026-01-23 01:07:08 UTC
The way the notifications are configured, if your battery is critical, and you have the critical battery warning enabled, you will see the warning regardless of whether the power is plugged in. The notifications are simply doing exactly what they are supposed to do, by reporting a fact about the battery charge state.

If the warnings were not shown when the system is on AC power, and the battery was critical, you would not know.

(In reply to Jay from comment #6)
> So am i to understand that if my battery was able to fully charge in a
> reasonable amount of time, this behavior wouldn't happen?

This is correct.

I'm going to close this out for now, since I don't think the request makes sense for normal usage. The more reasonable solution is to provide enough power to your device so that its battery can charge.