How can I explore what is causing my laptop to not come out of suspend properly when the lid is opened?

[Michael Shiloh]

I forgot to mention I'm running Xubuntu 12.04 which I keep thoroughly up 
to date.

Michael Shiloh
Artist, designer, tinkerer, teacher, geek
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On 06/20/2012 11:17 AM, Michael Shiloh wrote:
> For years I had been hibernating my laptop (Lenova T60 and now T61)
> instead of shutting down, and of course opening the lid did nothing
> until I pressed the power button. Besides the long amount of time it
> would take to come out of hibernation, this SEEMED to work fine,
> although sometimes I was presented with a login screen instead of an
> unlock screen, suggesting that I was booting up fresh rather than simply
> coming out of hibernation.
>
> Recently I've learned that suspend is quite reliable and of course much
> faster. I suspend either automatically on lid closure, or manually, and
> come out of suspend automatically when I open the lid.
>
> Occasionally, coming out of suspend fails. The power indicator light is
> on, as well as bluetooth and wifi. Wifi is even blinking occasionally,
> but I don't know what this means. The disc activity light is off.
>
> The only keys that are recognized are the "NmLk" and the little lamp
> that lights up the keyboard. I suspect these are handled by a
> microcontroller running the keyboard and not the main processor.
>
> Every other key and key combination I can think of is ignored, e.g.
> "Ctrl" "Alt" F1 etc. to get a console login.
>
> I have tried closing and reopening the lid, applying and removing
> external power, and pressing every single key, along with every
> combination of "Shift" "Ctrl" and "Alt", as well as the blue "Fn"
> button. Other than the numlock and keyboard lamp, nothing has any effect.
>
> I have tried both hibernating automatically on lid closure, and
> hibernating manually prior to lid closure. The problem seems worse when
> I hibernate automatically, but this is not a terribly scientific
> conclusion.
>
> I realize now that I may have been seeing the same problem when coming
> out of hibernation.
>
> I recognize that the problem may not be been caused by a problem
> starting up, but rather, due to some error while hibernating or suspending.
>
> What can I do to debug this? Any suggestions, comments, and ideas would
> be appreciated
>
> Michael