Custom keyboard shortcuts don't work

[Edwin Pujols]

Just noticed that adding custom keyboard shortcuts does not have any effect. If, for example, I add a custom keyboard shortcut for Evince and set it to Ctrl+Alt+E, pressing this key combination won't launch Evince.

* What happens *
  When I add a custom keyboard shortcut (and bind it to some key combination), the shortcut does not run the associated command.

* What I expect *
  After adding the custom shortcut, I expect that the shortcut launches the associated command.

Description: Ubuntu Saucy Salamander (development branch)
Release: 13.10

gnome-control-center:
  Installed: 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu36
  Candidate: 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu36
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu36 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu36
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-7.13-generic 3.11.0
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-7-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.12.1-0ubuntu4
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Sep 12 19:21:56 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-08-31 (12 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Alpha i386 (20130830)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_gnome-control-center:
 activity-log-manager 0.9.7-0ubuntu4
 deja-dup 27.3.1-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-datetime 13.10.0+13.10.20130903-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-signon 0.1.7~+13.10.20130724.1-0ubuntu1
 gnome-control-center-unity 1.3daily13.06.14.1-0ubuntu1

[Edwin Pujols (edwinpm5)]

I get this message when I run `gnome-control-center keyboard` from the terminal.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Dex (dex-stb)]

Switching input method from ibus to xim fixed it for me.

[Antonio Messina (arcimboldo)]

I have the same issue.

Dex, can you please explain how the workaround work?

[Antonio Messina (arcimboldo)]

Tanks to google, I've got it: im-config, follow the instructions and then logout and login again (need to restart X11).

[Dex (dex-stb)]

Yep. Also you can go back to iBus after that it will work.

Needs to be done after any changes to shortcut.

[Markus Vuori (lite-deactivatedaccount)]

Affects me, too (saucy). Please correct quickly, this is annoying.

[Markus Vuori (lite-deactivatedaccount)]

I tried switching input method to xim. Worked first, but not any longer. Not a reliable workaround.

[Edwin Pujols (edwinpm5)]

As Markus says, xim worked at first, but now (on trusty) it stops working in certain circumstances. I made it work by switching with ibus, logging out, and switching back then I restarted (I guess logging out would have done it, though). But it stopped working when I switched tty's by pressing Ctrl+Alt+12.

[Rob Koll (0x2jjt9d-agq-0tlbog0j)]

After starting System settings -> Keyboard, selecting tab Shortcuts, selecting Custom Shortcuts on t he left hand pane, adding a new one, eg. thunar, it shows the new short cut and signals not yet having a keybinding showing the word Disabled. When I attempt to select the line to enable entering a new binding, it will open the window that allows me to change the name or command. After closing the window (pressing cancel), it remains selected. Pressing some key combination (e.g. Super + e), the combination is not accepted. When I just press e, a kind of text box opens down right. But what ever I put there, it is not accepted as key binding.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

@Rob that is a different bug #821098. You have to click where it says Disabled and then hit the key combination you want.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

I can confirm this bug.

Didn't notice at first as my custom shortcuts were for things like screen brightness.
Went to add a new one today and nothing, not even the workarounds mentioned work.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

This is deffo an ubuntu issue.
Logging into a gnome session, all my media keys and shortcuts work, log back into ubuntu, none of them work.

This must be fairly new as I was using media keys a few days ago.

[Srikant Patnaik (u-srikant-patnaik)]

I too confirm this bug.

I found autokey-gtk useful, works perfectly fine. You may edit the example script to fit your need.

[Markus Vuori (lite-deactivatedaccount)]

xbindkeys is a good workaround, too, but still this is annoying. Sometimes working, sometimes not.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

I switched to xim and rebooted. Media keys, brightness keys and one custom shortcut worked. Others did not.
A reboot later and back to nothing working.

What is the handler for keyboard shortcuts? where does ubuntu store the shortcuts?

[Behrang (behrangsa)]

Wow. still not fixed and 14.04 is gonna be released soon. This together with keyboard stopping working in Java apps thanks to bugs in IBus, is gonna make it a troublesome time for Java devs.

[Stefanos Kariotidis (iccode)]

This issue remains unresolved in 14.04.

[Edwin Pujols (edwinpm5)]

@iccode: Actually, last time I tried, it worked. It was only rebinding Ctrl+Alt+T that I tested it, though.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

For me on 14.04 this problem is fixed.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

For 14.04 i get standard keybindings back, but custom ones fail to work.

E.g. i can remap screenshot keys, but custom ones for brightness fail.

[Vladimir (mark-vsb)]

The only way I found to solve this problem is to install ccsm

$ apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Open ccsm

$ ccms

General -> Commands (or Shortcuts (i don't know its name in your localization))
And set your shortcuts here.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

Still no joy with ccsm, although I may have identified more of the issue.

If I setup a commandline and try to invoke with some of the more "special' keys, e.g. "Brightness Up" that I have on my daskeyboard, it "grabs" the key combination as "XF86Launch6", or "XF86Launch5" for brightness down, or "XF86Eject", for eject (as I have no optical media drive I reassign this for other things)

If I pick a standard key like "F12", the command line executes.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about the input system to know what the differences are between a "standard" key and an "emulated XF86" one and the ways they are interpreted by the system.

[Matthieu Dubuget (matthieu-dubuget)]

For me, there was no problem with 13.10.

After the upgrade to 14.04 (ubuntu-gnome ):
- special keys have no effect (sound volume up/down, brightness etc.)
- custom shortcuts (home key to fire internet navigator, by instance) are no more working

[gazhay (gazhay)]

I have just returned to ccsm to edit the keybindings and try to diagnose this futher.

All the commandlines are empty, and the keybindings tab has blank buttons for any commands I had previously enabled.

Where does ccsm read this from as this may be one of the causes of this bug?

[Brian (waitingroomsnap)]

This is an occasional problem for me on 14.04. Sometimes my keyboard shortcuts don't work. Usually though, logging out and back in fixes the problem.

[James Cameron (quozl)]

On my system after upgrade from 13.04 to 13.10 and then to 14.04, custom shortcuts didn't work because the wrong keysyms were being generated, according to xev, despite my use of xmodmap in .xsession called by nodm. I fixed it by delaying the xmodmap by two seconds. I speculate that the X server initialisation of keyboard mapping changed in a way to introduce a race condition, and so setting the keyboard mapping later worked around the race.

[McFry (timo-latecrew)]

Can confirm same behaviour in Xubuntu 14.04. Using XFCE's Settings->Keyboard->Application Shortcut to assign shortcuts to special /multimedia keys (showing with XF86* prefix like XF86Music) on my Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard.

Assigning keys worked at first, and the shortcut seem to work randomly after boot. One time after boot they work, next time I reboot they don't work at all. Seems to be completely random after booting. This is very annoying.

[Matthieu Dubuget (matthieu-dubuget)]

Googling a little shows up that some other people are also affected by this problem:
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2218418
- http://www.ubuntuask.com/q/answers-after-upgrading-to-ubuntu-14-04-my-shortcuts-keys-and-media-keys-no-longer-work-451842.html
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/453709/global-keyboard-shortcuts-broken-in-14-04

[Brendon Robey (brendon-robey)]

Can confirm same behavior on Ubuntu 14.04 using Unity. Tried creating a custom hotkey to toggle mpc using my keyboard's Fn key and F4 but it did nothing. The same custom keybinding with just F4 works, however.

[GrouchyGaijin (1pt1nq88tv-w3bd-8aho930n7s)]

This isn't an Ubuntu issue. I had the same problem in Crunchbang. The problem is somewhere in XFCE.
My shortcuts are working at the moment and I'm holding my breath.

[leodream (leodream2008-8)]

Excatly the same with Matthieu.

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

I just hit this issue for the first time after a fresh install of Xubuntu 14.04 amd64 on a Thinkpad W510 with nvidia binaries about a week ago. At the moment, none of the shortcuts in Settings->Keyboard->Application Shortcuts work, including the few that I left at their defaults. This is after a suspend/resume cycle. I think prior to that they were fine.

Note that keyboard shortcuts in Settings->Window Manager->Keyboard work fine, including the ones I customized.

Also, note that I don't even have gnome-control-center installed, so I'll add xfce4-keyboard-settings to the list of affected packages. I get no error messages when I run it from the terminal and try changing keybindings. After changing them, they still don't work. xfce4-keyboard-settings probably isn't the real source of the issue, but it's a start. I'm removing "custom" from the bug title because it seems application shortcuts left at their defaults also don't work, for me and for others reported previously.

Given the apparent randomness of this bug, is there anything I can do at the moment to help debug? Once I suspend/resume again or logout/login, it might go away. Any particular logs I should post?

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

Nuts. xfce4-keyboard-settings isn't registered in launchpad for some reason, so I can't add it as an affected package. I've added libxfce4ui instead, although it needs to have a bug opened for it upstream for anyone to be notified. I couldn't find any relevant existing ones here:

https://bugzilla.xfce.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=libxfce4ui%20shortcuts

Here's a related XFCE forum posting from 2012, with a reply near the end from jeromeg, an XFCE dev:

"Keyboard Shortcuts not working"
http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=7138

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

Martin Spacek if default shortcuts are not working then you are seeing a different bug. Note that the description of how to reproduce the bug is specifically about custom ones. You would be better to post a new bug and revert the description of this one to its previous text.

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

Colin, #17 and #22 imply that default shortcuts also did not work, at least at some point. Since no one here seems to know exactly where this bug is occurring, and since it seems to be random (and therefore perhpas a race condition), it's not much of a stretch to assume that the same bug manifests slightly differently for different people. Whether a keybinding is default or customized seems unlikely to me to make much of a difference wherever these system-wide keybindings are implemented in code.

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

FYI, suspending and resuming didn't fix the issue for me, but logging out and back in did.

[Edwin Pujols (edwinpm5)]

@mspacek Notice that I reported this bug against Unity/GNOME 3 not against Xfce4. Unless you can prove that the bugs are coming from the same /common/ code (shared by both projects), it would be nicer if you reported a new bug against Xfce4.

IIRC, last time a used Trusty/Utopic the original bug wasn't present and I've never had any problem with the default shortcuts (either on Unity or Xfce4). And for that matter, I've never had problems with Xfce4 custom keyboard shortcuts. So please, report a new bug against Xfce4 if it haven't been filed before.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

Martin, the bug as described in the bug description is not random and does not affect default shortcuts. Any other problems should be reported separately, whatever others have commented. Apart from anything else it is always better to report a new bug unless it is absolutely clear that one is seeing identical symptoms to those in the bug description. It is best left to the developers to decide whether a slightly different symptom is actually caused by the same bug.

Also unless anyone is still seeing the bug (as described at the top) on 14.04 it should probably be marked as fixed.

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

"Notice that I reported this bug against Unity/GNOME 3 not against Xfce4. Unless you can prove that the bugs are coming from the same /common/ code (shared by both projects), it would be nicer if you reported a new bug against Xfce4."

@Edwin, yes, I noticed. You filed this bug against gnome-control-center. I might ask the same of you, to prove that these system keybinding issues are indeed due to that package, and not some other, perhaps lower level, package. Given the very similar symptoms we're seeing (or have seen), and given that not a single dev has yet to chime in, which package to file this against is anyone's guess right now. Why not pool our reasonable guesses together in one place, so that the issue gets more attention?

"IIRC, last time a used Trusty/Utopic the original bug wasn't present and I've never had any problem with the default shortcuts (either on Unity or Xfce4). And for that matter, I've never had problems with Xfce4 custom keyboard shortcuts. So please, report a new bug against Xfce4 if it haven't been filed before."

So because you were the first to report this bug, you own it, and decide what is and isn't relevant, despite (apparently) not being a developer? Race conditions are a vicious sort of randomness. For some people, a race condition bug may never show up. For others, all the time. And for others still, only once in a while, all dependent on how the stars align on your system. You may have been in 2nd group, and then later in the 1st, while I'm in the 3rd, yet we could all easily still be subject to the same bug. You're making hasty conclusions about a complex system that no one here knows enough about.

As James Cameron wrote in #28:

"I fixed it by delaying the xmodmap by two seconds. I speculate that the X server initialisation of keyboard mapping changed in a way to introduce a race condition, and so setting the keyboard mapping later worked around the race."

So, perhaps we should add X to the packages affected.

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

"Martin, the bug as described in the bug description is not random and does not affect default shortcuts."

Then perhaps the bug description should be ammended, given the slightly wider set of reports here from a variety of people. See my comment above on race conditions. Just because the original description fits you and Edwin best does not mean that it is fully accurate.

"Any other problems should be reported separately, whatever others have commented."

And who is to define what exactly is a different problem? Where do you draw the line? Did your problem happen at exactly the same time of day as the original in the bug description? Did it happen on exactly the same hardware, with exactly the same configuration? If not, then I suggest you open a separate bug report. </sarcasm> The answer is, devs are the only ones capable of deciding which problems are related, and which aren't.

"Apart from anything else it is always better to report a new bug unless it is absolutely clear that one is seeing identical symptoms to those in the bug description. It is best left to the developers to decide whether a slightly different symptom is actually caused by the same bug."

References please. Who, other than a dev (at best), can be absolutely clear? If a handful of similar yet slightly different bug reports are scattered all over the place, with nothing linking them save perhaps the odd keyword, how is a dev supposed to get a handle on the scope of the problem? The slight differences can be key to solving the problem. You see them only as distraction. What you propose is fragmentation and purity. What I propose is practicality.

"Also unless anyone is still seeing the bug (as described at the top) on 14.04 it should probably be marked as fixed."

If you'd feel inclined enough to go through some of the reports here, you'd know that the bug is alive and well in 14.04, both Ubuntu and Xubuntu. See #19, #22, #25, #27, #28, #29, plus my own (#34).

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

@Martin, I am not going to get involved in an argument, I am only trying to help. I suspect the reason this bug is no longer getting attention is that the devs looked at it months ago and since the bug as described (custom shortcuts not working) was no longer showing itself they have lost interest and unsubscribed from the bug. My suggestion to open a new bug describing succinctly the problem you are seeing was not for my benefit it was for yours. A new bug, referencing 14.04 in particular, and if confirmed by others, is more likely to get attention than continuing to flog away at this one.

[Edwin Pujols (edwinpm5)]

@Martin is as Colin Law says. This bug report won't get much more attention, just file a bug report against Xfce4 (in general) and the developers we'll work from there (you don't need to know the specific package)...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[iKozzz (minskcitizen)]

Ubuntu 14.04

System Settings/Keyboard/Shortcuts/Sound and Media

1. At first "Audio play" worked well on Play (or play/pause) command
2. Then i changed it to different combination
3. Then i decided to switch back to default "Audio play" key.

Actual: Key is recognized as "Audio play" but has no effect even after reboot.

[Tihamer Petrovics (tihameri)]

Hi,

You can use evrouter as a workaround. Here you can see how to configure it: http://ptichy.blogspot.com/2014/08/configure-evrouter-on-ubuntu-1404.html

[Benget Immanuel Nata (bentinata)]

14.04

A few days ago it's work in the System Setting → Keyboards. Now, manually bind shortcut using CCSM works for me.

[ggonlp (oktobermann)]

It is just sad that exactly a year after reporting this bug it still exists. CCSM won't work for me either.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

I agree, I had got Audio keys working again by luck, and decided to try custom shortcuts for something else again via the control panel.

Now lost all shortcuts again.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

As an update, I found this post :-

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2217890
and bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-control-center/+bug/1302885

Stating "
    The problem is that an incorrect string is set in dconf key: (Example)

    Original (working) value:
    ~$ gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up
    'XF86AudioRaiseVolume'

    After running "unity-control-center keyboard", and setting the shortcut for volume-up key:
    ~$ gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up
    'AudioRaiseVolume'

When I checked with dconf, my media keys were indeed screwed up as in this post. I added the XF86 prefix and they now work.

However, this is only one small part of the bug. (in fact a different bug)
If I try to capture keyboard events with xev, I am not getting any keypresses for keys I have assigned in the control centre gui.

For example, Brightness Up and Down keys - instead of triggering "keypress" and "keyrelease" events, instead trigger "Mapping notify", "focusout", "focusout", "focusin" and "keymapnotify" events.

I have also found that I can get the unresponsive keys to trigger the correct events in xev by pressing them with another key, e.g. press eject and F12, and I will get keypress events for both (and the shortcut assigned to a key sometimes will execute too)

In desperation I have even installed xbindkeys and configured it, but it seems to be too far up the keyboard handling chain to receive the keys before something else has stolen them and done nothing with them.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

I have had a bit of success.

Everything is working again.

I did 3 things:

1. Removed all custom keybindings in dconf editor
2. Installed and the uninstalled xbindkeys
3. Made the system create an .Xmodmap in my user directory

Now all shortcuts are working, including a terminal script being run from my eject key.

Can't say for certain what fixed the issue, but for now working (and i'll be avoiding the gnome control centre for adjusting shortcuts until that is patched)

[Matthieu Dubuget (matthieu-dubuget)]

Le 29/10/2014 12:27, gazhay a écrit :
> 3. Made the system create an .Xmodmap in my user directory

Hello,

what do you mean exactly by this?

Thanks for any hint.

cheers

--
Matthieu Dubuget
Guide d’autodéfense numérique : http://guide.boum.org

[gazhay (gazhay)]

I ran

xmodmap -pke > ~/. Xmodmap

In a terminal.
My keys are still working after several reboots.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

No space before Xmodmap

xmodmap -pke > ~/. Xmodmap

[Matthieu Dubuget (matthieu-dubuget)]

gazhay (<email address hidden>) — 2014-11-04 20:38:38
> I ran
>
> xmodmap -pke > ~/. Xmodmap
>
> In a terminal.
> My keys are still working after several reboots.
>

I should have read "had xmodmap generate a new .Xmodmap" instead of
"Made the system…".
I still wonder why I could not find this by myself.

I'll try. Thanks a lot for sharing.

Best regards

--
Matthieu Dubuget

[gazhay (gazhay)]

Upgraded to 14.10 and lost all but volume keys again.

[gazhay (gazhay)]

Ran through my actions in post #52 and now have all shortcuts working again.

[Aritchie (aritchie)]

Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Lenovo T61 laptop

I tried creating custom shortcut keys for the ThinkVantage button and FN = F3 combo. I had not problem creating the shortcuts but nothing happens when I use the shortcuts. I have double-checked to make sure that the command for each shortcut is correct. Now all the pre-defined shortcuts work just fine.

[Aritchie (aritchie)]

I negelected to mention that this is the 64-bit version.

[Aritchie (aritchie)]

Okay after doing so more digging I discovered that defining custom keyboard shortcuts does work but it apparently does not like the FN+F3 key. It puts it down as "Battery". The same goes for the ThinkVantage button - it puts down as Launch1 and apparently the system will not interpret those. If I assign let's say "Alt-F&' for one of tose than that works. The other FN + specialty keys on my Thinkpad that were setup by Ubuntu on install work. Hmm... I am going to poke around some more on this.

[E2rd (r-ubunt3-5)]

For me, only programs in /usr/bin/ or /usr/local/bin/ work. May that help.
(Other programs, stored either in /opt or in my /home directory, are simply ignored.)

Ubuntu 14.04 64bit, Dell Latitude E5440

[E2rd (r-ubunt3-5)]

Correction: My problem dissapeared when I disabled compiz Commands completely. Now, keyboard shortcuts work well.

[Michiel Janssens (janssensm)]

#63 solved my issue too.
Ubuntu 14.04.2 Unity.
Behaviour: some shortcut key combinations were not working suddenly.
f.e. ctrl+alt+T and custom shortcuts did not, but alt+TAB did work
And just Super key long press did work too, but not a combination with it.
In CCSM disabled Commands completely, after that all shortcuts were working again.
After enablling Commands in CCSM again, all were still working.

[Commoner (commoner51)]

The solution suggested by gazhai (#52) worked for me, too. I have Ubuntu 14.04.2 Classic. The only problem is tat every time I add a keyboard shortcut I have to logout and login to get it working. Is there an application that could do the same thing as logout-login?

[bitinerant (bitinerant)]

This problem has been bugging me for a very long time--custom and media keyboard shortcuts occasionally not working; logging out and back in usually fixes it. Comment #63 fixed it for me immediately (did not have to log out). :-) To be clear, I ran CompizConfig (search for ccsm) and, under the "General" category, unchecked the checkbox next to "Commands". What's more, this same procedure fixed the PrintScreen button on another computer (both Ubuntu 14.04.2). I have not tried re-enabling CCSM Commands.

[Matthias Laumer (matthias-laumer)]

I´ve got the same problem, tried the solution in #63 with no success.
Further in in ccsm I deactivated the "gnome contability" setting. Since this time I did not have any issue with my custom shortcuts again. (Tried this on two different systems which showed the same problem...)

Can anyone verify this ?

[bitinerant (bitinerant)]

Update to comment #66: Turning ccsm Commands off (comment #63) was not a permanent fix for me. All my shortcuts died again today. Turning Commands on and then back off restored my shortcuts for now (no log-out required), although last time I did this on two separate machines, they both crashed within a day--not sure if there is a connection.

[bitinerant (bitinerant)]

@Matthias (comment #67): I have Gnome Compatibility turned off in ccms and still my keyboard shortcuts die occasionally.

[Edward Falk (ed.falk)]

I just accepted an auto-update on my Ubuntu 14.04 system and all application shortcuts stopped working. I can't make them work again.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

@Edward Falk that is nothing to do with this bug, which is about custom shortcuts added by the user.