TLP_DEFAULT_PROFILE is not working // Cause: XFCE4-power-manager overrides profile

[sk9la]

Describe the bug
The Power daemon profile tlp-pd isn't working as expected

Expected behavior
I set the TLP_AUTO_SWITCH=0 and set TLP_DEFAULT_PROFILE=BAL, however after rebooting my thinkpad on battery, it switches back to POWER_SAVING mode
I checked that by doing tlpctl, and it shows power_save instead of balanced

[linrunner]

Your issue cannot be processed without the necessary diagnostic outputs. The easiest way is to use the issue template.

Show the complete output after booting battery-powered:

tlp-stat

Via https://gist.github.com/ please.

[sk9la]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Actually after checking your wiki and FAQs, I fixed it myself. My laptop was running very slowly on battery dispite setting *_BAT to balanced or performance.

So what I did was deleting every parameter that ends with _SAV and since my laptop runs faster on battery.

The problem was even by setting TLP_DEFAULT_PROFILE=BAL and running on battery, tlp-pd switches back to power_save no matter what I do

[linrunner]

I guess you've not correctly identified the cause:

• tlp-pd never does switch the profile without user interaction, but some desktop environments (GNOME, for example) switch to the power-saver profile when the battery level is low
• "Deleting" parameter lines in tlp.conf does not deactivate intrinsic defaults

Why don't you just show the tlp-stat output as soon as this mysterious “power_save” state occurs while running on battery power?

[sk9la]

Sure, here it is
https://gist.github.com/sk9la/8056a3b44165088ef972b781bbebbc32

[linrunner]

Thanks for the output.

The configuration shown doesn't work the way you'd expect, because TLP_AUTO_SWITCH="2" causes TLP_PROFILE_DEFAULT="BAL" to have no effect at all; instead, TLP_PROFILE_BAT="BAL" takes effect. With TLP_DISABLE_DEFAULTS="1", you’ve successfully neutralized the power-saver profile, so that ultimately no _SAV settings get applied.

Either way, these settings should select the balanced profile when booting on battery power. That's how I just reproduced it here. I suspect it might be a desktop setting (which desktop are you using?) or an additional app you've installed.

Let’s enable the trace and debug modes for tlp-pd and see what happens during boot.

Add this line to your tlp.conf:

TLP_DEBUG="arg ps rf run sysfs udev usb"

After that run

sudo systemctl edit tlp-pd.service

and add three new lines as shown here

 ### Editing /etc/systemd/system/tlp-pd.service.d/override.conf
 ### Anything between here and the comment below will become the contents of the drop-in file

 [Service]
 ExecStart=
 ExecStart=/usr/bin/tlp-pd --debug

 ### Edits below this comment will be discarded

Save edits, then reboot and show the output of

sudo tlp-stat -T

via https://gist.github.com/ please.

[sk9la]

I use ParrotOS 7 and XFCE 4.20

I don't have other apps that interfere with TLP like thermald or throttled. The only thing that may alter with tlp behaviour I doubt about is thinkfan. It's a service that start at boot and let me adjust the fan manually.

Here is the debug log: https://gist.github.com/sk9la/4d2a32ec8643b36c439f0d2515c659c6

[linrunner]

I see in the log that the balanced profile is being activated. An error occurs when tlp sends a response to tlp-pd:

juil. 13 15:30:31.750017 x-sk9la tlp[1673]: notify_profile_daemon.gdbus.call.SyncProfile(balanced): rc=1

And there's no sign of life from tlp-pd in the log. Are you sure the service is enabled and running?

 systemctl status tlp-pd

ps. thinkfan does not touch power profles, neither do thermald and throttled.

[sk9la]

Yes tlp-pd is working fine, as you can see below

toor:~# systemctl status --no-pager -l tlp-pd
● tlp-pd.service - TLP profiles daemon API service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/tlp-pd.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-07-13 17:03:27 CEST; 1min 58s ago
 Invocation: ca1cb7cac9bd4d0386ff7bd729acff4c
       Docs: https://linrunner.de/tlp
   Main PID: 1744 (tlp-pd)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 18478)
     Memory: 18.5M (peak: 24.6M)
        CPU: 481ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/tlp-pd.service
             └─1744 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/sbin/tlp-pd --debug

juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _get_property(interface='net.hadess.PowerProfiles', property='Actions', sender=':1.71'): @as []
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _get_property(interface='net.hadess.PowerProfiles', property='ActiveProfileHolds', sender=':1.71'): @aa{sv} []
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _get_property(interface='net.hadess.PowerProfiles', property='Version', sender=':1.71'): 'tlp-pd 1.10.1'
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _check_polkit_auth(sender=':1.71', action_id='org.freedesktop.UPower.PowerProfiles.switch-profile'): True ((true, false, @a{ss} {}),)
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _drop_all_holds()
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: Run detached TLP to apply profile 'power-saver'
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _set_property(interface='net.hadess.PowerProfiles', property='ActiveProfile', value='power-saver', sender=':1.71'): ok
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _check_polkit_auth(sender=':1.78', action_id='org.freedesktop.UPower.PowerProfiles.sync-profile'): True ((true, false, @a{ss} {}),)
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _method_sync_profile(profile='power-saver', sender=':1.78')
juil. 13 17:03:54 x-sk9la tlp-pd[1744]: _signal_properties_changed(changed_properties={'ActiveProfile': GLib.Variant('s', 'power-saver')}, invalidated=[]): PropertiesChanged signal emitted on net.hadess.PowerProfiles

[linrunner]

Even without the full trace, I can see that “something” activated the power-saver profile via the D-BUS API. That “something” is also using the legacy API net.hadess.PowerProfiles. It's likely that some component, plugin, or setting in your XFCE desktop is responsible for this. You'll have to investigate that yourself.

Can you please provide the trace data from July 13, 13:00 to 17:05 via Gist? You can retrieve older data (after a reboot) using tlp-stat -T -v.

[sk9la]

Oh wait, I found the reason. It was XFCE4-power-manager that was starting upon bootup. It was located in /etc/xdg/autostart/
After checking its setting, the power profile was set to power-save, I changed it to balance and rebooted.
Everything looks ok now :)

[linrunner]

That would be this dialog here, right?

You should now clean up your configuration again. Be sure to remove TLP_DISABLE_DEFAULTS=“1” and revert to TLP_AUTO_SWITCH=0. The latter prevents TLP and the XFCE4 power manager from interfering with each other.

Many of your settings are identical to the defaults anyway. Use tlp-stat --cdiff to find out which ones are actually customized. It’s best to configure them in a file like /etc/tlp.d/01-my.conf and leave tlp.conf in die pristine state. That way, nothing can go wrong during a package upgrade.