Key binding settings are lost and forgotten

[Martin Vysny]

Good day, I tried to disable the ALT+F7 key combination of the "Move Window" Compiz plugin (using CCSM), but the setting is ignored and is reverted back after I close and open CCSM. Also, the Opacity setting is ignored, however it is remembered properly.
Thanks :)

[Martin Vysny (vyzivus)]

I'm using Unity 3D on a fully updated Ubuntu 12.04 x86-32. Just today I have switched from Unity 2D, where I had the ALT+F7 setting disabled.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Thies Edeling (thies-m)]

Same here, rather annoying as it's a default shortcut in IntelliJ

[MC Return (mc-return)]

This bug is not really valid, as you can change the shortcut easily via CCSM.

Install the package compizconfig-settings-manager (sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager), open it, open the move plug-in and change the shortcut.

[MC Return (mc-return)]

I am not sure if this bug should be set to invalid though, because CCSM is unfortunately not installed by default on Ubuntu.

[Thies Edeling (thies-m)]

well the bug is, that that configuration screen of the plugin doesn't work. Try changing it to a different shortcut, exit CCSM and restart CCSM - alt-f7 is still set as the shortcut.

CSSM is indeed not installed by default so perhaps the bug should be rephrased as: can't change default shortcut for move windows in Unity.

[MC Return (mc-return)]

@thies-m: I cannot confirm your observation. Here on Quantal and Compiz trunk everything works as expected.

[Thies Edeling (thies-m)]

Just installed a vanilla 12.0.4 and couldn't reproduce it either :(

[Martin Vysny (vyzivus)]

I am on Quantal and removing the alt-f7 keybinding works until the computer is rebooted - then it is restored back.

[MC Return (mc-return)]

@vyzivus: Strange. Here everything works. I've changed it to Alt+F6 and after reboot it still works.
Can someone reproduce vyzivus'/thies-m's observations ?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I'm pretty sure this is a duplicate. A few people have reported this problem with 12.10.

I can't find the other bugs right now.

[Stephan Trebels (ncubede)]

Is there a workaround for this, yet?
It is truly annoying to configure key bindings, just to find them gone whenever I reboot the laptop with 12.10 (kept up to date using quantal-updates)

[Mathieu Delarue (mathipu)]

Happening for me, too. Set key bindings for Viewport Switcher -> Go to Specific Viewport (for 9 desktops) and lose the settings sporadically. Very frustrating. I moved the HUD key away from Alt since I'm using Alt-[1-9] for the other key bindings but to no effect.

This is on 12.10 upgraded starting with 11.04.

I checked .xsession-errors and see this suspicious message:
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/user/.compiz/session/10123488ea9adfd187135289555486127800000021780034"

The contents of .compiz/session are filled with similar files but none of them correspond with the file mentioned.

[Mathieu Delarue (mathipu)]

BTW, this happens on both my laptop and my desktop. Equally frustrating.

[Donjan Rodic (bryonak)]

OS: Ubuntu 12.10 upgraded from 12.04.
Goal: use Ctrl+q instead of Alt+F4 to close any window (much easier to reach and often used)

Method 1: install dconf-editor, set org/gnome/desktop/wm/keybindings/close to ['<Control>q'], successfully close windows with Ctrl+q, reboot system, the shortcut doesn't work anymore and the key is set to ['<Alt>F4']

Method 2: install ccsm, go to General Options -> Key bindings -> Close Window, Grab key combination (hit Ctrl+q), the binding is now set to <Primary>q and works, reboot system, the shortcut doesn't work anymore and the binding is set to <Alt>F4.

For some reason, ~/.config/dconf/user gets changed after rebooting. Making this file read-only seems like a silly workaround, but it's what I'm inclined to do next.

[Donjan Rodic (bryonak)]

Aside note: Ctrl+q works by default on some windows (e.g. Nautilus) but not on others (for example gnome-terminal), which is quite an annoying inconsistency. Alt+F4 works by default for all windows, but there's little point in a keyboard shortcut that is less convenient than moving the hand over to the mouse and clicking the close button...
Also I have trouble figuring out where Compiz currently stores it's settings... ~/.compiz and ~/.compiz-1 seem to be session data, but ~/.config/compiz-1/compizconfig only has empty files.

[MC Return (mc-return)]

@bryonak: Question: Does a "setsid unity" command in a console after reboot help you to restore your personal settings ?

[MC Return (mc-return)]

@vanvugt: Daniel, probably this special bug was fixed already here: https://code.launchpad.net/~mc-return/unity/unity.merge.fix-hardcoded-keys-part1/+merge/121545

I cannot reproduce it in trunk anymore.

[Donjan Rodic (bryonak)]

@mc-return:
No, I get
  compizconfig - Info: Backend : gsettings
  compizconfig - Info: Integration : true
  compizconfig - Info: Profile : unity
  [...]
  compiz (core) - Info: Unity is fully supported by your hardware.
and lots of
  compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: ...
  compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: ...
but the desired shortcut is not working.

Besides, is it right that the dconf settings file is not authoritative?
Backing up a ~/.config/dconf/user with a working Ctrl+q, rebooting, checking dconf-editor (close=Alt+F4), copying the saved dconf/user over the default (which differs after reboot)... now dconf-editor shows close=Ctrl+q, but the shortcut doesn't work. Just setting it to the same value makes it work though.

[MC Return (mc-return)]

@bryonak: You could test if adding the unity team staging PPA and updating/upgrading fixes your problem. But be aware that Unity from the staging PPA might introduce other, new problems... ;)

If you have no fear and know how to downgrade/purge a PPA if problems occur, here you can find it:
https://launchpad.net/~unity-team/+archive/staging

It would be nice, if you could confirm that the problem described in this report is already fixed.
Note though that not all shortcut-problems are fixed yet, as Unity seems to always start up with the gsettings backend instead of using the flat-file user configuration, but running 'setsid unity' once after reboot works-around that problem also...

[Donjan Rodic (bryonak)]

@mc-return:
It's my work machine, so I'm not too ethused about pulling dev channels (sorry, upgrading to 12.10 was questionable already). I might try at some point on another computer, but I mainly need efficient hotkeys here so that's low priority.

Current workaround:
  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings close "['<Control>q']"
in a user session startup script, with sleep 2.
Not elegant but worksforme... it'd be nicer if the fix gets into release at some point, but I'm not going to care until 13.04, so I'm done here. Thanks for your time.

[Donjan Rodic (bryonak)]

One more note: I do have quite a few other shortcuts specified (Super+x for terminal, etc.), but none of those get reset as is the case with Control+q.

[Mathieu Delarue (mathipu)]

setsid unity had no positive effect

I added the staging ppa and updated my laptop and so far, after two reboots, the settings stayed - though it didn't happen on every reboot.

I'll report back in a couple of days.

[Mathieu Delarue (mathipu)]

negative.

Booted up this morning and the 9 shortcuts I have setup <Alt>1 - <Alt>9 for the viewport switcher were gone. However, my change to move the HUD key to the Menu key from <Alt> was still in place.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 964270, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[neil king (neil-neilking)]

In the preferences section in CCSM I set the Backend to Flat-File Configuration Backend. This caused my CCSM settings and keyboard shortcuts to be persistent. You'll have to do a unity --replace for the changes to take affect though.