GNOME: Modifiers Only keyboard layout switch have no effect

[Shlomi Israely]

After setting up Alt+Shift keys to change the keyboard layout (via gnome-tweak-tool or via gnome control center), these key combinations do not provide the expected result.

Expected Result:
Keyboard layout is changed and keyboard indicator display updates

Actual Result:
Only keyboard indicator display updates, leaving the actual keyboard indicator in English.

I have English-Hebrew keyboard layout configured with alt+shift for layout switching.
Once the layout is on Hebrew, alt+shift switches back to English properly.
Once the layout is on English, alt+shift changes the keyboard indicator to "he", but actually the systems layout is still English.
At this point, pressing Alt+Shift results in changes to the indicator display only, resulting in no actual layout switches.

If "Allow different sources for each window" is selected in "Input Sources Options" then:
- Changing the layout to Hebrew.
- Alt-Tab to another window with a different layout.
- Alt-Tab back, allows me to type back in Hebrew.

When Alt+Shift "switches" to English:
$ setxkbmap -query
rules: evdev
model: pc105
layout: us
options: compose:caps,terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp,grp:alt_shift_toggle

When Alt+Shift "switches" to Hebrew:
$ setxkbmap -query
rules: evdev
model: pc105
layout: il,us
variant: ,
options: compose:caps,terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp,grp:alt_shift_toggle

Which seems right. But still when typing, English chars are being typed.

I tried this with the packages from the official repos, gnome-ppa, and ppa:attente/1218322 as described here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/356357/how-to-use-altshift-combo-to-switch-keyboard-layout-in-13-10
All with the same effect.

Ubuntu 13.10
gnome-settings-daemon 3.8.5-0ubuntu9

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Shlomi Israely (sijproject)]

Tested it in a fresh Ubuntu 13.10 GNOME LiveCD.

This is how you set up the configuration:
Go to Gnome Control Center»Region & Language»Input Sources
Add Hebrew as another layout.
Open Gnome Tweak Tool and under typing»Keys to Change Layout select Alt+Shift.
Open gedit and type in English.
Alt Shift, to switch to Hebrew.
Keyboard indicator is showing "he", although while typing English chars are being shown instead.

[Sergey Zolotarev (szx)]

I have the same problem, reported this on the GNOME bug tracker but was told that this is Ubuntu's fault: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=711001

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. What version of gnome-settings-daemon and gnome-control-center do you use?

[Shlomi Israely (sijproject)]

Right now I'm using: gnome-control-center 3.8.5-0ubuntu1~saucy1 and gnome-settings-daemon 3.8.5-0ubuntu11.1

but none of the following makes any difference, as I tested all of these:

$ apt-cache policy gnome-control-center
gnome-control-center:
  Installed: 1:3.8.5-0ubuntu1~saucy1
  Candidate: 1:3.8.5-0ubuntu1~saucy1
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.8.5-0ubuntu1~saucy1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu/ saucy/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:3.6.3-0ubuntu45 0
        500 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu/ saucy-updates/main amd64 Packages
     1:3.6.3-0ubuntu44 0
        500 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu/ saucy/main amd64 Packages

$ apt-cache policy gnome-settings-daemon
gnome-settings-daemon:
  Installed: 3.8.5-0ubuntu11.1
  Candidate: 3.8.5-0ubuntu11.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.8.5-0ubuntu11.1 0
        500 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu/ saucy-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.8.5-0ubuntu9 0
        500 http://mirror.isoc.org.il/pub/ubuntu/ saucy/main amd64 Packages

[Sergey Zolotarev (szx)]

gnome-settings-daemon: 3.8.5-0ubuntu11.1
gnome-control-center: 1:3.8.5-0ubuntu1~saucy1

[John (vanuan)]

> I have the same problem, reported this on the GNOME bug tracker but was told that this is Ubuntu's fault:
> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=711001

Same here:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=712189

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install multiple keyboard layouts
2. Use gnome-tweak-tool to set layout shortcut to Alt-Shift
3. Use layout applet to set layout1 active
3. Press Alt-Shift

Expected behaviour:

- Indicator was layout1, now layout2
- Active layout was layout1, now layout2

Actual behaviour:

- Indicator was layout1, now layout2
- Active layout was layout1, still layout1

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[alon (alon-ben-refael)]

Hey good people of Ubuntu, Gnome and Ubutnu-Gnome,

What information can I add to help fix this issue?
- Selected keys on Gnome Tweak Tool for changing language: Alt+Shift.
- Scroll Lock light should turn on when changing to Hebrew
- My Num Lock light is always on (I always use Num Lock)

What actually happens hitting Alt-Shift:
- It turns Scroll Lock light on
- It changes the indicator from En to He
- It makes the Num Lock lightturn on (otherwise of on my regular keyboard, whereas it is on on my Lap Top keyboard, and it does work as Num Lock...)
- laguage stays English when typing.
- When rehitting Alt-Shift Num Lock light turns off along with Scroll Lock light and everything returns to be English (obviously includding typing language which stays English...)

When hitting Super+Space (on Region & Language's Input Source tab's Shortcuts it sais switching is by Super+Space for next source and Shift+Super+Space for previous source):
- The OSD, probably Gnome's native, comes and allows me to select language.
- Living it will change the typing language to Hebrew
- Kipping it pressed allows the using of the mouse to select my language of choice.
- Niether Num Lock nor Scroll Lock light turns on.

Using Ubuntu-Gnome 13.10.
No special added software.
Updated to latest updates.
WHat more can I add? Please help me help you help me!! ;-)

[alon (alon-ben-refael)]

More of the same bug:
When in LibreOffice, typing in Hebrew and hitting Ctrl+s\Ctrl+B or any of the non Shift contaning combinations (Shift turns a Hebrew Keyboard into a Capital letters keybord) it's as if I didn't press any hotkey at all.

[Sergey Zolotarev (szx)]

I don't know if this is the same issue but recently this started getting even worse:

1. default input language for some reason is not English
2. as a consequence, the LED lights on when I switch to English (should be the other way around)
3. Alt + Space doesn't work anymore (should switch to next input source but doesn't switch anything)
4. switching language via indicator doesn't work

[ofek luis lewinsohn (o-l-lewinsohn)]

well I can only confirm that the problem on my ubuntu 13.10 with gnome installed still exist.

an ugly workaround can be done with xkb of course. I added as a startup command/application through the startup application preferences the following command setxkbmap -layout "de,il" -option "grp:alt_shift_toggle" and disabled all gnome shortcuts to switch layout and left only one layout as option. (deleted the hebrew layout and left only the german one in this case)
(tried to do it also through xorg and /etc/default/keyboard and /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/something but both gotten overwritten)

[Louis Dupont (louis-dupont)]

Exact same issue with a nearly out of the box Ubuntu 13.10 64 bits install. Does not effectively toggle between English-US (installation language) and French-CAN (added afterwards). Although I see the indicator toggling in the top menu, the effective keyboard layout systematically switches or stays English (US). Selecting one language or the other works through the indicator.

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

Isn't this bug a duplicate of bug #1218322 (Can't set keyboard layout change to alt+shift, ctrl+shift, etc.)

[udomsak chundang (udomsak-chundang)]

Thai keyboard layout have also too.

Ubuntu 13.10 amd64 // gnome 3.10 ppa

shell:~$ setxkbmap -query
rules: evdev
model: pc105
layout: us
options: grp:lalt_lshift_toggle

shell:~$ setxkbmap -query
rules: evdev
model: pc105
layout: th,us
variant: ,
options: grp:lalt_lshift_toggle

gnome-control-center:
  Installed: 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu1~saucy3
  Candidate: 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu1~saucy3
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu1~saucy3 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu/ saucy/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:3.6.3-0ubuntu45.2 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates/main amd64 Packages
     1:3.6.3-0ubuntu44 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/main amd64 Packages

[Haggai Eran (haggai-eran)]

I believe I'm seeing the same bug in Ubuntu 14.04. I'm using Caps Lock to switch layouts (set using gnome-tweak-tool). With the English layout:
$ setxkbmap -query
rules: evdev
model: pc105
layout: us,il
variant: ,
options: grp:caps_toggle

And with the Hebrew layout:
$ setxkbmap -query
rules: evdev
model: pc105
layout: il,il,us
variant: lyx,,
options: grp:caps_toggle

(Not sure if it should show two ils in the layout field).

After using Caps Lock to switch from English to Hebrew, further presses only change the indicator, but the keyboard continues to type Hebrew keys.

I have gnome-control-center version 3.6.3-0ubuntu56 installed.

[Haggai Eran (haggai-eran)]

Just another comment, I was able to work around this issue in 14.04 by changing the keyboard layout setting to apply globally instead of per-window.

[whitefawn (whitefawn)]

I have Right Control key as keyboard layout switcher.

if I click and hold RightCtrl and then press any keyboard key, the layout switches and I can type in another alphabet.

If I simply press RightCtrl, the actual keyboard layout is back to English, despite the layout indicator switches

Experienced on Ubuntu Gnome 13.10 and 14.04.

[whitefawn (whitefawn)]

(as a side note, I find it highly ironic that Ubuntu, once advertised as international OS, now has the bug that affects users all over the world ) :)))

[William Hua (attente)]

Hi, a stable release update for this was proposed for 14.04 in this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/1318673. It's a duplicate of this one, but please try it and use that bug for the SRU verification process since ~ubuntu-sru is already subscribed there.

[Haggai Eran (haggai-eran)]

Hi, I've tried the package in ubuntu proposed but it didn't fix the issue for me.

[Sergey Zolotarev (szx)]

Still having this problem in gnome 3.12.2 :(

Is there anything we can do to help fix this?

[M.Hanny Sabbagh (hannysabbagh)]

I can confirm this bug on Ubuntu 14.10 with Gnome 3.14.
Any fixes people?

[molecule-eye (niburu1)]

Me too: bug present with Ubuntu Gnome 14.10, Gnome 3.14 (Staging PPA).

[David Hofmann (david-hofmann)]

Using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Gnome 3.10.4

Have a slightly different though clearly related problem:
I disabled all switching of keyboard layouts and have just a single adjustment in the gnome-tweak-tool:
Namely, in 'Typing' I set 'Switch to another layout' to the button 'left Win (while pressed)'. Hence I would expect to have the layout switched whenever I keep this button pressed. Layout indicator does not switch also on other window managers I used besides Gnome but the actual keyboard layout switches.

Interestingly, it works properly if I switch manually to the secondary layout, which is from English (primary) to German (secondary), and then press the left Win key: the layout switches back to English while pressed. The other way around however does not work. When English is set as standard and then Win key is pressed, nothing happens.

Thanks for your efforts to solve the bug!

[val.kotlarov.hoffman (val-hoffman)]

Same story here on 14.10 with Gnome 3.14.3

[attila123 (vangel-attila)]

Hi, I found a way to make the Alt + Shift keyboard switching working in Gnome 3 (tested with 3.28.2).
First examine this current setting:

dconf read /org/gnome/desktop/input-sources/xkb-options

(in my case it was empty)
Then set the appropriate options, e.g.:

dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/input-sources/xkb-options "['grp:alt_shift_toggle']"

Now I can switch the keyboard layouts with Alt + Shift. (Earlier I might deleted all the Alt + Shift + * keyboard shortcuts, I am not sure...
It is permanent, should work after logout + login and reboot.

To add the keyboard layouts, press Super key (default) and type/search for "Region & Language" and add them under "Input Sources".

Hope it will help many people! :)

(I was inspired by https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/333368/gnome-3-22-disable-altshift-keyboard-layout-switching but it did the opposite thing.)