Wayland causes arrow key scroll lock behavior when using Japanese or US-intl keyboard layouts

[tyknkd]

After upgrading to Ubuntu 21.04 with Wayland as default, the arrow keys on my Japanese 108-key USB keyboard scroll in LibreOffice Calc as though scroll lock is toggled on (even though the scroll lock light is not on) instead of moving the cell in focus. (This happens with the US-intl keyboard layout too.) The arrow keys work as expected in other programs though, including LibreOffice Writer.

If I switch to the default US keyboard layout, the arrow keys on the same keyboard work properly: moving the cell in focus.

I tried removing grp_led:scroll from XKBOPTIONS="grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll" in /etc/default/keyboard, but that did not fix it.

I also tried uninstalling LibreOffice and removing the config files as explained here, but that didn't fix it either.

This was not a problem in Ubuntu 20.10 and the Japanese USB keyboard arrow keys work correctly in LibreCalc on Windows, so the issue appears to be specific to Ubuntu 21.04, not LibreOffice, nor this keyboard.

As a workaround, if I start the session with Xorg instead, the arrow keys work as expected with any keyboard layout. Therefore, this bug appears to be related to Wayland.

I was encouraged to file this bug report for gnome-shell in the comments on this AskUbuntu post: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1356052/why-do-japanese-keyboard-arrow-keys-scroll-in-libreoffice-calc-but-move-cell-wit/1356059?noredirect=1#comment2321519_1356059

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.38.4-1ubuntu3~21.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.11.0-25.27-generic 5.11.22
Uname: Linux 5.11.0-25-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu65.1
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Aug 7 12:18:23 2021
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-02-05 (548 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 3.38.4-1ubuntu2
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
modified.conffile..etc.apport.crashdb.conf: [modified]
mtime.conffile..etc.apport.crashdb.conf: 2021-07-06T20:58:08.463515

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Please report the issue to the developers at:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues

and then tell us the new issue ID.

[tyknkd (tyknkd)]

Issue ID:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/1909

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 21.04 (hirsute) reached end-of-life on January 20, 2022.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in.