The curious case of "why is it not working anymore?" (ASUS ROG Zephyrus M GM501GM)

OpenRGB: 0.21, git master

System: ASUS ROG Zephyrus M GM501GM

OS: Pop!_OS 20.04 "Focal" LTS 5.4.0-7629-generic, libusb-1.0-0/focal,now 2:1.0.23-2build1 amd64

Type: ROG Aura Core USB

USB ID: 0b05:1866 ASUSTek Computer, Inc. N-KEY Device

First: apologies for using rogauracore as a reference, but as you read on you'll realise why.

Setting color, mode and brightness through the rogauracore app works... at first, until you shut the system down, then for some odd, magical reason it never works again. The device also has a weird behaviour from cold booting.

  1. Cold boot (after full power drain) reveals single colour, green
  2. Select Windows
  3. Upon login screen keyboard is "initialized" and color changes to a yellow light-green colour
  4. Set keyboard to "breathing" effect, slow speed and reboot
  5. At POST keyboard is still "breathing", all the way to the Linux userland
  6. Attempting to change color (./OpenRGB -m static -c FFFFFF) as regular user, through sudo or sudo su - does not work
  7. Recieve error "Mode 'static' not available for device 'ASUS Aura Core'"

I've also attempted to boot into OSI=! and OSI=Windows2012, to no avail. Also I think the speed of the breathing went from "slow" to "medium"... or "fast.

I don't plan to nuke and pave again just yet to see if OpenRGB also works at first attempt, but I'm guessing this has more to do with system configuration than it does the actual code (if OpenRGB uses similar methods as rogauracore, the same results should be expected).

As a side note I provided the USB ID used on this laptop to the rogauracore project some time ago. I had a weird experience with it, to say the least. I'd compile, build and try using it with sudo - to no avail. I had to use sudo su - to get it to work. At first I added a udev rule, which seemed to work - until I do a cold boot, when it completely stops functioning. I'm wondering if this is more about firmware than software. On this system (recently nuked and paved) I downloaded, compiled and ran rogauracore just to be ale to set the brightness. It worked, untill some reboots later, when it now refuses to work entirely... great. I get to taste the rainbow at 3AM.

It might be a permission issue - though I've nuked the udev rules and rebooted to no avail. It might be a libusb issue. Perhaps I should try another version of libusb? Are the values incorrectly set to USB, and though it may work, the firmware puts a stop to further attempts? I am so completely confused by all this...

Please advise and I'll provide extra information.