upower battery status flashing when both AC and battery are plugged in

[Ralf Jung]

Hi upower list,

on my laptop (a HP Compaq 315), upower is acting strange: If both the AC and 
the battery are plugged in, the battery status as reported by upower flashes. 
Once or twice a minute, the battery status icon in the system tray (I am using 
KDE 4.6) flashes to "no battery available." Running "upower --monitor" for a 
while shows that the problem is in upower itself, not somewhere in the GUI:

$ upower --monitor
[14:50:33.294]  device removed:   /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:34.108]  device added:     /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:34.108]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:34.265]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:35.264]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:36.267]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:37.267]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:38.267]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:52.336]  device removed:   /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:53.184]  device added:     /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:53.184]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:53.266]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:54.264]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:55.265]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:56.267]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:50:57.266]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:11.368]  device removed:   /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:12.229]  device added:     /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:12.229]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:12.266]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:13.265]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:14.264]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:15.264]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:16.266]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:30.384]  device removed:   /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:31.243]  device added:     /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:31.247]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:31.267]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:32.264]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:33.267]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:34.266]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:35.264]  device changed:     
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:49.420]  device removed:   /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
[14:51:50.251]  device added:     /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0

I did not touch the power supply at all while taking above logfile.
This behaviour is quite annoying, because the blinking in the bottom-right 
corner sometimes distracts from what I actually want to concentrate on, and it 
circumvents KDE's mechanism to only show the battery icon if something 
interesting happens (like plugging a power supply in/out, or running low on 
battery): Since KDE thinks the battery is remove and re-added every 
~30seconds, it keeps showing and hiding that icon...

$ upower --version
UPower client version 0.9.15
UPower daemon version 0.9.15

For some more details and the original Debian bug report, please have a look 
at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=638970.

I am not subscribed to the list, so please keep me (and the Debian bug) in CC 
when replying.

Kind regards,
Ralf