On-screen keyboard (OSK) on touch screen does not seem to work at all under Xorg in Focal

[Mario Vukelic]

After upgrading to Focal, the OSK never appears for me under Xorg
- Does not appear automatically when selecting text fields
- Cannot be summoned on-demand by swiping up from bottom screen border (which worked on Eoan also under Xorg)

Under Wayland, both these things continued to work after the Focal upgrade if the laptop is in tablet mode (but not if it is in regular laptop mode - not sure if this changed on upgrade).

I could repro this on two "2-in-1" fold-able laptops:
Dell XPS 9575 2-in-1
Asus Zenbook flip UX561UD.

(Note: There was an older bug #1760399 about OSK not working under Xorg, but this one was fixed in Cosmic)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.35.91-1ubuntu2
Uname: Linux 5.5.4-050504-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu18
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Mar 8 17:33:36 2020
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-09-13 (541 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish" - Alpha amd64 (20180912)
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 3.35.91-1ubuntu1
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-01-04 (63 days ago)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I think we should generalize and track this in bug 1807276.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[esjarc (esjarc)]

Apparently there is already an open upstream issue about this problem, which appeared in GNOME 3.36: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues/2378
It makes touchscreens with Ubuntu 20.04 very difficult to use.

I don't think this bug is a duplicate of #1807276, since the issue in this bug (#1866556) report didn't occur in previous GNOME releases (3.34 or earlier) and first appeared with the update to GNOME 3.36. I ran the focal daily builds since the release of 19.10 and this issue was not present up to the point, where the GNOME 3.35.* packages appeared in the repositories.

The other report seems to be about an issue that also appeared in Ubuntu 18.04 (GNOME 3.28), which is not the case for this particular report.
This bug is about the on-screen keyboard not appearing at all, unless you enable it in the accessibility settings. But enabling it in the accessibility settings causes other negative side effects, since the on-screen keyboard then also appears when using a mouse and keyboard until you disable the accessibility setting manually.

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

@esjarc, as the OP of this report I agree and also commented as much in the other #1807276 already.

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

@esjrac, you wrote in the duplicate Bug #1874017 that the issue occurs for you under Wayland as well. Can you repro this also in the tablet mode of the foldable devices that you mentioned there?

I am asking because for me this occurs under Wayland only if the devices are laptop mode. In tablet mode, the OSK comes up fine (both auto by touching textfield and when summoned by swiping).

I can still repro this (with gnome 3.36.1 on Focal) with foldable devices as described in the OP above, i.e. with:
Dell XPS 9575 2-in-1
Asus Zenbook Flip UX561UD

However under Xorg the OSK does not come up in tablet mode either

[esjarc (esjarc)]

@mario-vukelic I just tested it again with my devices (just to be sure) and I have this issue under Wayland and Xorg independently of the screen rotation (laptop + tablet mode).

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

@esjarc, does the keyboard get disabled when you fold your machines? It does on mine, as it should be. I'm just wondering where the difference comes from ....

[esjarc (esjarc)]

@mario-vukelic I am sorry, I forgot to mention this information in my previous comments.

Lenovo ThinkPad L390 Yoga: Keyboard, keyboard backlight and touchpad get disabled
HP ENVY x360 15-cp0 and Lenovo ThinkPad X201 Tablet: Keyboard, backlight and touchpad don't get disabled

I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work on the latter two devices because of the unsupported tablet mode.

Just tested it again and for some reason it worked on the L390 Yoga now? But it only seems to work in native Wayland applications (gedit, Firefox, Shell are working at the moment; Brave, KeePassXC, VirtualBox aren't). Xwayland and Xorg are still problematic.
It is really interesting that it does work on the L390 Yoga now, as it definitely didn't work the last couple of months (not even in the Shell overview) and earlier today ... I will definitely watch this more closely now. Since earlier today I rebooted the L390 Yoga a couple of times. Other than that I haven't changed anything, unattended-upgrades has not even installed updates since yesterday (according to the log files).
Hopefully this isn't one of the issues that only happens sporadically ...

The other two devices are still unchanged. At least we now have the same symptoms (for now?) on all of the properly supported devices.

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

Thanks. So it seems as follows, correct?

This here bug report refers only to running under Xorg in Focal, where ...
- the OSK does not work at all on the properly supported devices (at least the ones listed),
- neither per autosummon nor on demand by swiping,
- regardless of a physical keyboard not being available.
This is a regression compared to Eoan.

However the OSK is working in Focal as expected [1] on Wayland, on supported devices where the physical keyboard gets properly disabled.

As far as I know, it is not expected for autosummon to work for KeePassXC etc., but in this case I can summon on demand in Wayland by swiping from bottom of screen. (But can't under Xorg)

[1] It seems it is expected that even in Wayland the OSK is only available when the physical keyboard is disabled, according to discussion on this gnome-shell report:
"On Screen Keyboard shows up on Wayland despite there is a physical keyboard"
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/2353

The above gnome-shell #2353 is linked from the gnome-shell report that seems to be related to the issue in this here bug, as @esjarc mentioned in the duplicate Bug #1874017, i.e.:
"OSK isn't activated without physical keyboard"
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues/2378

[esjarc (esjarc)]

Yes, I think your definition is correct. This bug is/should be primarily about the virtual keyboard not appearing when using the Xorg session, even though all (ACPI) events for tablet mode are handled properly. It seems to work fine within the Wayland session and it worked fine in Xorg in previous Ubuntu releases.

And we have a second issue, which causes similar issues also under Wayland. It happens when 2-in-1 devices don't switch to tablet mode under Ubuntu. This issue was also introduced with GNOME 3.36/Ubuntu 20.04.
It would probably be a good idea to open another bug report for each unsupported device, I guess?

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

Thanks.
It does look to me that the keyboard issue is probably separate and certainly warrants a bug, in particular if it is a regression and those 2-in-1s switched fine with Ubuntu 19.10.
But I am just a mere user here, @vanvugt will know.

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

Related Bug #1851931 ?

[Tom F (n411303)]

My Asus ZenBook UX370UAF worked straight out of the box with Ubuntu 18.04. Since upgrading to Focal Fossa 20.04 it does not show.

[James Swift (swiftscripts)]

I am experiencing this issue with my Acer Switch 11 V sw5-173. In 19.10 everything worked as expected. In 20.04 I am unable to summon the osk whether the keyboard is attached or detached. The only way to enable the osk is to use the accessibility options in gnome and turn it always on.

This is also being tracked upstream in this mutter ticket: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/1242

[James Swift (swiftscripts)]

I can confirm that under wayland, when my keyboard is disconnected I can summon the osk by tapping in a text field or swiping up. When the keyboard is connected, there is no way to summon the osk. There is no way to summon it under X however.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could people having the issue on focal report a new ticket using 'ubuntu-bug gnome-shell' and include the session type, hardware and steps to trigger to the issue

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

@seb128: A new bug for each device? I am the OP and I reproduced this on two different foldable laptops (Dell XPS and Asus Flip), should I open a new bug for each? (When opening this here bug, I used ubuntu-bug on the Dell XPS)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@Mario, no, one bug to start would be enough

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

@seb128: Created the new bug #1880596

[Mario Vukelic (kreuzsakra)]

Fix released, see the new bug #1880596. Should this one be marked a duplicate of bug #1880596?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

If you agree it's really fixed then yes this should be a duplicate.