Changing battery path/name ("Battery not detected" fix)

Valkheis

Hi y'all

Lately I installed Solus Plasma on my HP x2 210 g2 detachable and have been fighting with it since to finally detect my device battery. It wasn't listed by upower and couldn't be found in root but worked just fine without the adapter.

I recently checked if the battery would be detected by another OS and indeed it was, by tails. I checked with upower and it was listed as BATC.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I suppose that's the problem, since batteries are usually named BAT0 or BAT1. Is there any way to let system know it should look for BATC or to rename battery? Or is it entirely irrelevant and would not fix my problem?

I'd love to have my solus-powered mini pc on the go with me soon so thank you in advance for any answers and suggestions.

pomon

What shows:

upower -e
ls /sys/class/power_supply/

Check:

sudo dmesg | grep -i battery
journalctl -b | grep -i battery
systemctl status upower
lsmod | grep -i acpi

Valkheis

pomon

Thank you for reply.

Outputs from Plasma
upower-e shows:

/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_ADP1
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/DisplayDevice

ls /sys/class/power_supply/ shows:

ADP1

sudo dmesg | grep -i battery gives no output

journalctl -b | grep -i battery gives no output other than usual hint

lsmod | grep -i acpi shows:

snd_sof_acpi_intel_byt    20480  0
snd_sof_acpi           16384  1 snd_sof_acpi_intel_byt
snd_sof_intel_atom     20480  1 snd_sof_acpi_intel_byt
snd_sof_xtensa_dsp     16384  1 snd_sof_acpi_intel_byt
snd_sof               405504  3 snd_sof_intel_atom,snd_sof_acpi,snd_sof_acpi_intel_byt
snd_intel_sst_acpi     16384  1
snd_soc_acpi_intel_match   118784  2 snd_sof_acpi_intel_byt,snd_intel_sst_acpi
snd_intel_sst_core     77824  1 snd_intel_sst_acpi
snd_soc_acpi           16384  4 snd_soc_sst_bytcr_rt5640,snd_sof_intel_atom,snd_soc_acpi_intel_match,snd_intel_sst_acpi
snd_intel_dspcfg       40960  3 snd_sof,snd_sof_acpi_intel_byt,snd_intel_sst_acpi
snd_intel_sdw_acpi     16384  1 snd_intel_dspcfg
acpi_thermal_rel       20480  1 int3400_thermal
acpi_pad               24576  0
i2c_hid_acpi           12288  0
i2c_hid                40960  1 i2c_hid_acpi
sdhci_acpi             28672  0
sdhci                  81920  1 sdhci_acpi
mmc_core              217088  3 sdhci,mmc_block,sdhci_acpi

systemctl status upower shows:

● upower.service - Daemon for power management
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/upower.service; disabled; preset: enabled)
    Drop-In: /usr/lib64/systemd/system/service.d
             └─10-timeout-abort.conf
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2025-03-10 00:19:47 CET; 47min ago
       Docs: man:upowerd(8)
   Main PID: 620 (upowerd)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 4386)
     Memory: 3.1M
        CPU: 503ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/upower.service
             └─620 /usr/lib64/upower/upowerd

Warning: some journal files were not opened due to insufficient permissions.

pomon

ADP1 is the power adapter. And the question is, why does it detect the power adapter but not the battery?
First, check in BIOS/UEFI if the battery is visible and if there are any parameters that need to be enabled.
Also, check again on Live how the battery is detected. Use upower -e and ls /sys/class/power_supply/. If it's detected, check the kernel version with uname -a. That's all I can think of for now.

Valkheis

pomon

Thank you for your time.
There's a switch in the BIOS which enables/disables battery percentage visibility but both options unfortunately have no effect in this case.
I tried with Live both Plasma and Budgie to exclude KDE as the culprit since KDE was known for some battery recognition bugs. Both gave me the same output.
However, I might entertain you with an output obtained with tails on the same device.

amnesia@amnesia:~& upower -e
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_ADP1
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BATC
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/DisplayDevice
amnesia@amnesia:~& ls /sys/class/power_supply/
ADP1	BATC

As you can see, tails has no problem with recognizing the battery, named BATC, adapter is listed too so they are not listed interchangeably here.
This might be ignorant of me, because it's just a deduction not based on knowledge, but is it possible for Solus to be hard-coded to look only for BAT0 or BAT1 as these are the usual names?

pomon

Valkheis but is it possible for Solus to be hard-coded to look only for BAT0 or BAT1 as these are the usual names?

I don't think that's the case, but it's best to ask the devs, for example, on Matrix in the help room.
On Tails:

check the kernel version with: uname -a
see if the acpi package is installed: apt list --installed acpi
check if the battery is actually being read: upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BATC

On Solus:

install acpi: sudo eopkg it acpi
then run: acpi -i
check if there's anything related to the battery that upower isn't detecting:
sudo find /sys -name BAT*

PS. I can also suggest using a script that can read the battery. Download battop version battop-v0.2.4-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu. Give execute permissions chmod +x battop-v0.2.4-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu and run it in the terminal.

Valkheis

pomon

Tails:

uname output is Linux amnesia 6.1.0-29-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.123-1 (2025-01-02) x86_64 GNU/Linux
acpi is not installed

The battery is being read and the output is:

native-path:          BATC
  vendor:               Intel SR 1
  model:                SR Real Battery
  serial:               123456789
  power supply:         yes
  updated:              Tue 11 Mar 2025 07:31:34 PM UTC (11 seconds ago)
  has history:          yes
  has statistics:       yes
  battery
    present:             yes
    rechargeable:        yes
    state:               discharging
    warning-level:       none
    energy:              8.4161 Wh
    energy-empty:        0 Wh
    energy-full:         12.4278 Wh
    energy-full-design:  32.571 Wh
    energy-rate:         0 W
    voltage:             8.135 V
    charge-cycles:       N/A
    percentage:          47%
    capacity:            38.156%
    technology:          lithium-ion
    icon-name:          'battery-good-symbolic'

On Solus:

acpi is already installed
both acpi and find commands give no output

Also I tried battop, it prints an error saying there are no batteries installed

pomon

I no longer know what to advise you. I'll repeat: ask the developers on Matrix. Alternatively, install and switch to the LTS kernel.

Valkheis

pomon

Thank you for the assistance. I also think we cannot do much more in this case, nevertheless I am grateful for your time and effort

Axios

Appears that computer was a (problem child) with battery and sound
So at this point I would make sure your bios is current
I dont have the time to research it may be kernel issues.

Valkheis

Axios

Thanks for the reply.
I read about some other issues with this model myself, gonna check the bios updates and see if it helps