Hi,

I have some performance problems with my SLES12 and KDE 4.14.9. From time to time my desktop starts freezing for some seconds and no more interaction is possible. There are some entries in the system messages concerning the powerdevil which occur each time my server is hanging. Maybe it has something to do with the powerdevil, which I don´t need for my purposes at all. So therefore my question: Is it possible to disable or delete the powerdevil completely? That might help me analyzing my performance problem...

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2015-07-29T13:29:27.593954+02:00 myserver dbus[8250]: [system] Activating service name='org.kde.powerdevil.backlighthelper' (using servicehelper)
2015-07-29T13:29:27.648504+02:00 myserver dbus[8250]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.kde.powerdevil.backlighthelper'


Thanks!

You can disable it in Systemsettings ("Configure Desktop")->Startup and Shutdown->Service Management.

Btw, your problem might be related to a memleak in polkit, causing kded4 eat enormous amounts of memory due to powerdevil.
This has been a problem in openSUSE 13.2, and was fixed later via an online update, but I don't know whether SLES12 has gotten that fix too.
Related bug reports:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=271934
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=88288
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=912889
(the last one is still open for SLE12 it seems)

So please check the RAM usage of that process (either via "top" or KDE's system monitor which you can reach via Alt+ESC).

If that's the case:
What polkit version do you have installed?
And what does the polkit package changelog say?

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rpm -q --changelog polkit | head

Thanks for the quick reply.
I think this might help me a lot. The kded4 process has a growing RAM usage on my servers. I will try to disbale the power management as you mentioned and see what will happen.

My polkit version is: polkit-0.112-2.189.x86_64

Changelog:

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* Fr Sep 27 2013 toms@opensuse.org
- Fixed URL

* Do Sep 19 2013 hrvoje.senjan@gmail.com
- Update to 0.112
  + polkitunixprocess: Deprecate racy APIs
  + pkcheck: Support --process=pid,start-time,uid syntax too
    (CVE-2013-4288)
  + Use GOnce for interface type registration
  + Add czech translation po file to distribution
  + Update the czech once more with newest pot file

* Fr Jul 05 2013 dimstar@opensuse.org
- On openSUSE 13.1+, switch from mozjs185 to mozjs-17.0 by:
  + Conditionally BuildRequire pkgconfig(mozjs-17.0).
- Drop libmozjs185-1_0 Recommends: the library is actually required
  and auto-detected as such by rpm (from 0.111 changes: "The
  JavaScript interpreter is now mandatory").

* Fr Jun 14 2013 hrvoje.senjan@gmail.com
- Update to 0.111
  + Both js185 and mozjs17 versions of SpiderMonkey are supported
  + The JavaScript interpreter is now mandatory
  + Fixed various memory leaks
  + Respect SUID_CFLAGS and SUID_LDFLAGS
  + Set process environment from pam_getenvlist()
  + Fix the build with automake 1.13
- Drop polkit-suid_flags.patch and automake-113.patch, those
  patches are included in this release

* Do Apr 11 2013 hrvoje.senjan@gmail.com
- Add automake-113.patch, fixes build with automake-1.13

* Mo Feb 18 2013 gber@opensuse.org
- Recommend libmozjs185-1_0 which is dlopen'ed and required for JS
  rules

* Mo Jan 14 2013 hrvoje.senjan@gmail.com
- Update to 0.110
  + Set XAUTHORITY environment variable if is unset
  + Use mutex and condition variables properly
  + Build fixes.
- Changes from version 0.109:
  + Include gmodule-2.0 to avoid linker errors
  + Don't require libmozjs185 devel packages for polkit rules
    to work
- Drop polkit-link-gmodule.patch and polkit-libmozjs.patch, those
  are merged upstream

* Mi Jan 09 2013 saschpe@suse.de
- Only mark the following files as %config, not %config(noreplace):
  + %{_sysconfdir}/dbus-1/system.d/org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1.conf
  + %{_sysconfdir}/pam.d/polkit-1
  + %{_sysconfdir}/polkit-1/rules.d/50-default.rules
  PolicyKit's own config files should only be changed for good reason
  and we want to prefer openSUSE's defaults (you still get an .rpmsafe
  file)

* Mo Dez 10 2012 dimstar@opensuse.org
- Add polkit-libmozjs.patch: dlopen libmozjs185.so.1.0 instead of
  libmozjs185.so, which is packaged in the -devel package
  (bnc#793562)

* Do Nov 15 2012 dimstar@opensuse.org
- Update to version 0.108:
  + PolkitAgent: Avoid crashing if initializing the server object
    fails
  + Fall back to authenticating as uid 0 if the list of admin
    identities is empty
  + Dynamically load libmozjs185.so and cope with it not being
    available
  + docs: mention the audience for authorization rules
  + build: Fix .gir generation for parallel make
- Only conditionally Require ConsoleKit when with_systemd is 0:
  systemd support obsoletes ConsoleKit.
- Add polkit-link-gmodule.patch: Link against gmodule-2.0.
- Change libpolkit0 to require polkit >= %version instead of the
  exact version. This will ease upgrade problems should there ever
  be a soname bump of libpolkit0.

* Mi Nov 14 2012 dimstar@opensuse.org
- Enable systemd inetegration (change with_systemd to 1): As an
  agreed target for 12.3, systemd integration will be enabled.



thompu wrote:Thanks for the quick reply.
I think this might help me a lot. The kded4 process has a growing RAM usage on my servers. I will try to disbale the power management as you mentioned and see what will happen.

I think it will help then, yes.
The service is called "Power Management" btw.

My polkit version is: polkit-0.112-2.189.x86_64

Yes, 0.112 is indeed the affected version.
The openSUSE package has this fix that is still missing in your package according to the changelog:

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* Mon Jän 12 2015 tchvatal@suse.com
- Try to fix kded leaking due to powerdevil exposing this issue in
  polkit (kde#271934, fdo#88288, bsc#912889):
  * polkit-no-kded-leak.patch

* Fre Sep 27 2013 toms@opensuse.org
- Fixed URL

* Don Sep 19 2013 hrvoje.senjan@gmail.com
- Update to 0.112
...

I don't know how the SLE update process works, but maybe you should add a comment to the SUSE bug report.
Probably this doesn't have a high priority on SLE though as KDE isn't even included AFAIK.

I have an additional question... can KDE's power manager be replaced by another DE's power manager? Will any of the other DE's ones work?..