With Ubuntu 16.04 laptop doesn't suspend when lid is closed

Question

I have a Dell 7737 laptop, and with Ubuntu 16.04 it no longer suspends when the laptop lid is closed. With 14.04 closing the lid put the laptop to suspend as expected. However, I reloaded the system with Ubuntu 16.04 and now closing the laptop does nothing. The laptop continues to run as if nothing happened.

When I manually select "Suspend" from the menu it works as expected. (Though it does prompt me to double login on resume. No, not encryption login followed by OS login. This is a double OS login.)

NOTE: Altering the System Settings|Power doesn't seem to affect anything.

Any ideas on what changed from 14.04 to 16.04 in this area?

Answer 1

I stumbled across an answer that seems to have worked. Too bad there is not a cleaner way to do this than to alter the default settings. Would rather the System Settings|Power setting worked.

I edited the file '/etc/systemd/logind.conf'

sudo vi /etc/systemd/logind.conf

Then I uncommented the line (removed the beginning #) containing 'HandleLidSwitchDocked=ignore' and changed the value to be:

HandleLidSwitchDocked=suspend

After a reboot all seems to be working as expected, though I'm still prompted to login twice. (Once to unlock, and again as a user of the OS.)

Answer 2

I had a similar problem. There is apparently a bug in the 4.4.0 kernel. The problem can be solved when you install the new kernel 4.4.8.

You can find instructions to do it here: http://linuxdaddy.com/blog/install-kernel-4-4-on-ubuntu/

Works perfect for me.

Answer 3

I have/had the same problem and found this link helpful. Laptop does not suspend when lid is closed

Like one of the people with "solutions", I found that I have to manually suspend my laptop initially before closing the lid on subsequent occasions will work.

Good luck with it.

Answer 4

You might have a look under Settings > Power > When laptop lid is closed.

Set it to "Suspend", on battery power or on ADC, depending of the behaviour you want.