I would like to ask for some help debugging an irritating problem I'm having with my Packard Bell EasyNote MZ35 and Ubuntu 10.10.

Always when the laptop is connected to a wireless network and the AC power lead is unplugged—so it's running on battery power—the system freezes. The screen turns black and shows the error GLib-WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to unknown user id (0), although this error is completely unrelated to the actual problem.

Previous searches on the internet indicate that this error is unrelated to the bug I'm experiencing. It is suggested that Ubuntu tries to hibernate or suspend and that you're seeing the black screen running 'behind' the X server. That would explain the fact that curiously you still see—but cannot move—the mouse cursor.

I've already set all the values of the GConf keys in /apps/gnome-power-manager/actions/ to 'nothing', disabled all power management actions I could find, but it didn't solve the problem. It is important to note that the freeze doesn't happen immediately after you unplug the AC power lead. The icon in the notification area may have changed already, but the freeze only occurs when the Notify OSD bubble appears that tells you how many time is left with your battery.

Does anyone here have a clue about this problem? A workaround or the cause? If anyone could help me with disabling possible suspend/hibernate behaviour that might be related to this issue, that would be appreciated too.

This issue has been reported as bug #666852.