gnome sometimes uses keycodes instead of characters

[Uwe Schilling]

I have set the shortcut ctrl+esc for opening a new gnome-terminal. In the following I will refer with the "lower key" to the capslock-key itself and with "capslock" to the behavior, also the "upper key" is the escape key itself, "esc" is its behavior.

I swapped the capslock-key and the esc-key, so that with the shortcut remaining, so that I press ctrl+lower key to open a terminal. This works for a while. However, after some time, gnome "forgets" that the keys are swapped and ctrl+lower key doesn't translate into any action, while ctrl+upper key opens the terminal and activates capslock at the same time. For all other applications, the lower key keeps being used as esc, and the upper as capslock, only the shortcut is broken. It can be restored by setting in system -> preferences -> keyboard shortcuts the shortcut for opening the terminal to some other value and then back to ctrl+lower key. However, after a while, gnome forgets it again.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

 * Is this reproducible?
 * If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?

 This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[Uwe Schilling (uschilling)]

Yes, it is reproducible. Some further testing showed that gnome starts
to mix up the shortcut after log out -> log in or after a reboot

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to system -> Preferences -> Keyboard, change the behavior of the
capslock key there to "swap capslock and esc"

2. Go to System -> Preferences -> Shortcuts, bind ctrl+lower key (new
esc-key) to "run terminal"

3. check that it works

4. log out and log back in or reboot

5. ctrl+lower key doesn't start the terminal anymore, however ctrl+upper
key starts terminal and activates capslock.

I am working on a German keyboard layout (qwertz), I don't know if
that's of any relevance for that matter)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

do you get the issue with any action? what keybinding is written in the interface?

[Uwe Schilling (uschilling)]

Yes, if I bind "maximise window" to ctrl+esc, the same problem arises for that action. I guess with interface, you are talking about System -> Preferences -> Shortcuts: the keybinding written there is ctrl+esc

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. A new version of GNOME Control Center is available on Maverick and we are wondering if this bug is still an issue for you with that version? Could you please test and comment back? Thanks in advance.

[Uwe Schilling (uschilling)]

In lucid the bud still persists, even though it shows in a different manner. As maverick is coming out in a few days, I will not comment in detail on the lucid bug. I will update my system only after the official release and report back then if the bug is still present in maverick

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the bug is years old without activity nor new report and the code changed quite a lot since, closing, feel free to register new bugs if you have issues in newer versions though