Sometimes intel_lpmd doesn't do anything

I'm making this bug report because I've noticed this some times already, but I've noticed that sometimes intel_lpmd is started but doesn't do anything, just reports that it sets wlt_idle and there's a lot of "received uevent" lines, but it never changes state. I just work around this by restarting it and then it works as normal

[Toxblh]

Hi @stereomato, looks like that is never works for me. Could you pls show how looks like log, when it works fine.

[spandruvada]

It is possible that from configuration, this is not enabled by default.

<BalancedDef>-1</BalancedDef>

But, you can do
intel_lpmd_control AUTO

even when that is set to 1, nothing happens. But I haven't tried current lpmd.

[jamlam]

I've been having similar issues with the current lpmd. There are some errors in the logs about being unable to write to a cgroup, it looks like if the device doesn't shut down cleanly these are left and prevent lpmd from functioning correctly. A restart resolves the issue by cleaning the old cgroup and creating a new one, this should be probably be handled automatically though. I can see there's been some work done on this already in an older release, does this need checking?

[spandruvada]

Can you try the latest version and see if you see issue.

[octomike]

I'm on main and see a similar behaviour - namely: nothing, unless I run intel_lpmd_control AUTO

Before, I see debug logs like this:

Dec 11 13:28:26 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: wlt: 0
Dec 11 13:28:26 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [  Data] [    OFF] [DEFAULT_OFF]: WLT [ 0] CPUMASK [0003ffff] ITMT [1] EPB [6] EPP[power] Interval [-1]
Dec 11 13:28:27 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: wlt: 1
Dec 11 13:28:27 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [  Data] [    OFF] [DEFAULT_OFF]: WLT [ 1] CPUMASK [0003ffff] ITMT [1] EPB [6] EPP[power] Interval [-1]
Dec 11 13:28:27 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: wlt: 0
Dec 11 13:28:27 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [  Data] [    OFF] [DEFAULT_OFF]: WLT [ 0] CPUMASK [0003ffff] ITMT [1] EPB [6] EPP[power] Interval [-1]
Dec 11 13:28:28 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: wlt: 3
Dec 11 13:28:28 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [  Data] [    OFF] [DEFAULT_OFF]: WLT [ 3] CPUMASK [0003ffff] ITMT [1] EPB [6] EPP[power] Interval [-1]
Dec 11 13:28:29 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: wlt: 0
Dec 11 13:28:29 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [  Data] [    OFF] [DEFAULT_OFF]: WLT [ 0] CPUMASK [0003ffff] ITMT [1] EPB [6] EPP[power] Interval [-1]
Dec 11 13:28:29 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: wlt: 3
Dec 11 13:28:29 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [  Data] [    OFF] [DEFAULT_OFF]: WLT [ 3] CPUMASK [0003ffff] ITMT [1] EPB [6] EPP[power] Interval [-1]

(using WLT hints only on M6 F170)

after setting to AUTO I get all the migration/enter/exit logs

[...]
Dec 11 13:29:28 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: Ignore IRQ migration
Dec 11 13:29:28 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: Ignore cgroup processing
Dec 11 13:29:28 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [ Enter] [   AUTO] [ WLT_BATTERY_LIFE ]: WLT [ 1] CPUMASK [16] IRQ [-1] ITMT [-1] EPB [6] EPP [178] SliderAC [-1] SliderDC [-1] OffsetAC [-1] OffsetDC [-1]
Dec 11 13:29:28 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [  Data] [   AUTO] [ WLT_BATTERY_LIFE ]: WLT [ 1] CPUMASK [0003ffff] ITMT [1] EPB [6] EPP[178] Interval [-1]
Dec 11 13:29:28 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: wlt: 0
Dec 11 13:29:28 leslie intel_lpmd[272774]: [Choose] [   AUTO] [ WLT_IDLE ]: CPUMASK [16] IRQ [-1] ITMT [-1] EPB [15] EPP [255] SliderAC [-1] SliderDC [-1] OffsetAC [-1] OffsetDC [-1]

At first I thought I misunderstood the PerformanceDef/BalancedDef/PowersaverDef options. But no matter what value I put, I always end up with OFF/DEFAULT_OFF state.

[octomike]

For what it's worth, it also breaks the moment i switch from AUTO to ON and back to AUTO.

Debug output stays at:

Dec 11 13:55:47 leslie intel_lpmd[275383]: [  Data] [   AUTO] [ WLT_IDLE ]: WLT [ 0] CPUMASK [0003ffff] ITMT [0] EPB [15] EPP[power] Interval [-1]

and I don't see any WLT events / changes anymore. So I'm stuck on the efficiency cores. Going back to OFF and then AUTO makes it work again.

[maciejwieczorretman]

@octomike do you have WLT Proxy setting enabled in your config file?
I noticed it was a little broken when working on issue #106 that's also related to F6 M170. I put the solutions I found in a comment there.

[retblast]

@maciejwieczorretman I will be testing that fork you have.

[retblast]

Seems like it does work!

[octomike]

No, I have <WLTProxyEnable>0</WLTProxyEnable> and still - unless I run intel_lpmd_control AUTO (currently as ExecStartPost in systemd) the daemon doesn't do anything.

[maciejwieczorretman]

@retblast that's great! Thanks for confirming :)

[maciejwieczorretman]

@octomike okay, and what values does your config file have in these fields:

	<PerformanceDef></PerformanceDef>
	<BalancedDef></BalancedDef>
	<PowersaverDef></PowersaverDef>

Because if they're all '-1' or '1' then it will either start of in force disabled or force enabled (so always in low power mode)
If you want them to start in auto it needs to be '0'. I guess we should change the default to auto since it doesn't make sense to have the default be disabled.