FAQ

General FAQ

Why doesn't the library support Mac?

I don't have a Mac to develop the library on so I have no way to test if the code works. If you have a Mac and you would like to contribute, please do not hesitate to create a pull request.

Library throws exception - `NameError: name '_OS_MODULE' is not defined`

This error is thown when attempting to use the library on unsupported platforms.

Upon import, the library will check which OS it is running on and will attempt to import the relevant, OS specific sub-modules. When running on an unsupported OS, this will not be possible and so _OS_MODULE will not be defined.

In the past, a NotImplementedError would have been raised at this stage, letting you know the issue. This behaviour was changed in v0.16.0 to simply log a warning.

My monitor isn't supported

This library supports most laptop displays and desktop monitors. Desktop monitors must support DDC/CI and have it enabled (try checking your monitor's on screen display menu).

If your display meets these conditions but isn't showing up, you can check if the library doesn't support your display like so:

import screen_brightness_control as sbc
# print all detected but unsupported monitors
for display in sbc.list_monitors_info(allow_duplicates=True, unsupported=True):
    if display.get('unsupported'):
        print(display)

Windows FAQ

When I call `get_brightness()` the returned value isn't what I set it to

Not all monitors can set the brightness for every value between 0 and 100. Some of them have a number of 'levels' that they can be set to. You can likely see this if you open your display settings and very slowly move the brightness slider.
You can find out your brightness 'levels' by running the following python code:

import wmi
monitor = wmi.WMI(namespace='wmi').WmiMonitorBrightness()[0]
#the number of levels the monitor can be set to
print(monitor.Levels)
#the actual brightness values your monitor can be set to
print(monitor.Level)

Linux FAQ

Why do I always get `ScreenBrightnessError`?

Linux often requires a bit of tweaking to get working out of the box. This either means installing a 3rd party program or granting extra permissions to the user.

These steps are covered in detail on the Installing On Linux page.

None of these answered my question

Please raise an issue on the GitHub repo or email me at captaincrozzers@gmail.com with your question.

FAQ