Dell XPS m1330 multimedia keys don't work in Ubuntu

[Zaar Hai]

I'm running Kubuntu Hardy on Dell XPS m1330. It has touch-sensetive multimedia keys. All keys work fine out of the box, except of "XF86AudioPrev" key - when pressed once, several dozens of presses are reported by dumpkeys. This happened to me with all of the touch-sensetive keys in PCLinuxOS 2007, and now with Kubuntu only "XF86AudioPrev" does not work properly.

[Zaar Hai (haizaar)]

Apparently xev shows several key strokes each time I press "Back" button _once_.

FocusIn event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyPointer

KeymapNotify event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FocusOut event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyPointer

FocusIn event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyPointer

KeymapNotify event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FocusOut event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyPointer

FocusIn event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyPointer

KeymapNotify event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FocusOut event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyPointer

FocusIn event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyPointer

KeymapNotify event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FocusOut event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyPointer

FocusIn event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyPointer

KeymapNotify event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FocusOut event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyPointer

FocusIn event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyPointer

KeymapNotify event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FocusOut event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyPointer

FocusIn event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyPointer

KeymapNotify event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

FocusOut event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyPointer

FocusIn event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x3e00001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyPointer

KeymapNotify event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 1 0...

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

These work properly on Ubuntu. Kubuntu configuration isn't in the scope of the Dell project.

[Marc Bres Gil (marc-bres)]

I tested yesterday again the audio back buton in amarok on my kubuntu 8.04.1 updated with apdept manager to the lastest and now it's working as expected. One click -> one song back.
Don't know what package solved this, but now is working for me

[Zaar Hai (haizaar)]

I've tested again on fully updated kubuntu 8.04.1 - the bug is still here.

[Marc Bres Gil (marc-bres)]

After upgrading my kubuntu to intrepid, now isn't working as expected none of the multimedia keys. All of them (back, stop, play/pause, forward, volume up and volume down) are getting more than one event for each press

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for reporting this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We need more information to begin working on this problem. Please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting and attach any log files as requested.
Thank you.

[Gioele Barabucci (gioele)]

Here is the requested logs from Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid running on a XPS m1330: lshal.log

[Gioele Barabucci (gioele)]

Please note that I'm using plain Ubuntu, not Kubuntu.

[Gioele Barabucci (gioele)]

Still not fixed on XPS m1330 and updated (2009-01-30) Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid (not Kubuntu). Please change to confirmed.

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

Gioele:

What keys aren't working for you? All Dell keys should work with the latest updates to 8.10 Ubuntu.

[Gioele Barabucci (gioele)]

The four rw/stop/play/ff keys don't work, while they previously worked.

The other keys (eject, mute…) work fine.

When I press the 'stop' key no action is performed and xev says

FocusOut event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x4600001,
    mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyAncestor

FocusIn event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x4600001,
    mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyAncestor

KeymapNotify event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
    keys: 114 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
           0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

In order to test those keys with xev, you need to kill gnome settings
daemon first.

You can see them being sent with a dbus viewer. They only work with
apps that can listen for those dbus events.

On 02/28/2009, Gioele Barabucci <email address hidden> wrote:
> The four rw/stop/play/ff keys don't work, while they previously worked.
>
> The other keys (eject, mute…) work fine.
>
> When I press the 'stop' key no action is performed and xev says
>
> FocusOut event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x4600001,
> mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyAncestor
>
> FocusIn event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x4600001,
> mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyAncestor
>
> KeymapNotify event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
> keys: 114 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
> 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
>
> --
> Dell XPS m1330 multimedia keys
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/226509
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of The Dell
> Team, which is subscribed to Dell Ubuntu Project.
>

--
Sent from my mobile device

Mario Limonciello
<email address hidden>

[Zaar Hai (haizaar)]

On Kubuntu Jaunty multimedia keys are broken again - Prev/Stop/Play/Next/Mute/VolUp/VolDown send several strokes upon single press.

[Gustavo Narea (gnarea)]

I can confirm this in Kubuntu 9.04.

I see the status is "incomplete", but some people have already provided the requested information. Is there something else missing? I can provide it.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Marking as Confirmed, required info provided.

[Gustavo Narea (gnarea)]

I'm using that laptop and all the hotkeys are working like a charm. They didn't work like this out-of-the-box, though; initially:

 1.- All the keys were ultra sensitive, which I solved in System Settings -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard repeat - Delay = 600.
 2.- The four audio-specific keys didn't have an action assigned, which I fixed via Amarok's Global Shortcuts (Settings -> Configure shortcuts).

[Zaar Hai (haizaar)]

Thanks, Gustavo! Your trick does the job apparently!
The bug is at after installation, Delay box show 660 number, but according to the slider its only about 150. Moving it actually to 600 (or just hitting "Defaults"). Actually, value of 400 still works, while making typing experience more pleasant for me.

Thank you again!

[A. Leon (aleon05)]

This bug still happens to me in Jacktalope 9.04:

[bigbrovar (bigbrovar)]

i still experience this bug in kubuntu 9.04 running kde 4.3

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Can you confirm the version of hotkeys is 0.5.7.4-0.1ubuntu1 by running "apt-cache policy hotkeys" (without quotes)? Thank you.

[edbond (edbond)]

The same problem, 9.04, gnome. Pressing volume down key once reduce volume by about 50%.
> apt-cache policy hotkeys
hotkeys:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.5.7.4-0.1ubuntu1
  Version table:
     0.5.7.4-0.1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://ua.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages

[edbond (edbond)]

Installing hotkeys dont fix bug.
hotkeys:
  Installed: 0.5.7.4-0.1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.5.7.4-0.1ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.5.7.4-0.1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://ua.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

hotkeys should already have been installed by default.... strange
Nevertheless it is confirmed now in the newest Jaunty version, and I believe there is enough debugging information here for a developer to begin work, so I am going to mark this Triaged and let them take it from here. Thank you for reporting this and everyone for your input.

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

Since this is a KDE specific bug, changing the package to kubuntu-meta so that kubuntu developers will see it and be able to take a look at it from there.

'hotkeys' is in universe and not used for default installs to support different hotkeys on any of Ubuntu, or derivatives, or remixes.

[edbond (edbond)]

Wow, I didn't use kde. I use Gnome (not kubuntu) and have the same problem. IMO, this isn't a kde specific bug.

[atany (ye-gorshkov)]

It seems there are two parts of this bug:

1. not KDE-specific: extremely low delay value for repeating multimedia keys.
This happened to me after upgrade to Ubuntu Jaunty without KDE.

2. probably KDE-specific: multimedia keys not assigned by default.

[edbond (edbond)]

I found a description of this problem in arch wiki (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_M1330):

Add the following setting to the "InputDevice" section for your keyboard:

Option "AutoRepeat" "700 20" # First time is the hold-time in ms before autorepeat starts,
                                     # second is the repeats per second.
                                     # Experiment with hold-times of ~680-700ms to find the lowest possible.

I didn't change xorg.conf but I experimented with keyboard delay in 'Keyboard Preferences':
If I set delay to high values mmkeys works pretty much as expected. But I can't work with that high repeat delay for keyboard.

The keys have luminescence after press. I guess this can be the source of several keypress event.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

I'm not too sure if these are two separate issues. Can you file a bug against the keyboard problem with the key delay settings. Thank you.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

This bug report is filed because the reporter has a problem with his multimedia keys, not because of the keypress delay. Can someone confirm that the Dell multimedia keys are not working in GNOME so that we can determine if it is a KDE specific bug or not? Thank you.

[kikoune (kikoune)]

I am running Ubuntu 9.04 with XFCE 4.6 (not Xubuntu) and I have the issue where my multimedia keys are not working.

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

Moving to X11. The repeating part does not seem to be Kubuntu specific, as per comments, plus I would find it weird to be caused by KDE.

Anyway, since it is apparently fixable via xorg.conf let's just assume it is fixable for real in x11. The fact that some keys are not bound to actions in Kubuntu is being worked on though.

[Gioele Barabucci (gioele)]

This bug is still present in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

@gioele: Thank you. Can you provide the information requested at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys/Troubleshooting following the instructions under the "Step-by-step Troubleshooting" section please. Also can you provide the output files from the following as separate attachments:
udevadm info --export-db > udev-db.txt
dmesg > dmesg.log
sudo lsinput > lsinput.log
xkbcomp -xkb :0 - > xkbcomp.txt
setxkbmap -print > xkbmap.txt
Thank you.

[Gioele Barabucci (gioele)]

Here are my findings.

The codes that xev gets are correct. This is the xev output:

  keycode 171 = (keysym 0x1008ff17, XF86AudioNext), state = 0x0
  keycode 171 = (keysym 0x1008ff17, XF86AudioNext), state = 0x0
  keycode 172 = (keysym 0x1008ff14, XF86AudioPlay), state = 0x0
  keycode 172 = (keysym 0x1008ff14, XF86AudioPlay), state = 0x0
  keycode 174 = (keysym 0x1008ff15, XF86AudioStop), state = 0x0
  keycode 174 = (keysym 0x1008ff15, XF86AudioStop), state = 0x0

(the first keycode is on key-down, the second on key-up)

The bindings in /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/keybindings are pretty sensible

  $ gconftool-2 -R /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/keybindings
   volume_down = XF86AudioLowerVolume
   pause = XF86AudioPause
   search = XF86Search
   volume_up = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
   previous = XF86AudioPrev
   stop = XF86AudioStop
   eject = XF86Eject
   next = XF86AudioNext
   volume_mute = XF86AudioMute
   play = XF86AudioPlay

Please not that volume-down, volume-up and mute keys are working.

[Gioele Barabucci (gioele)]

I found out that the original bug has been solved. The problem that we are still experiencing are related to bug #361149. Once the workaround outlined in that bug report are applied, the XPS media keys are working again, both in GNOME and in KDE.

[Ryan Thompson (rct86)]

This is not fixed.

The issue with multiple keypresses generated by the Dell XPS M1330's media keys is a hardware problem with the Dell laptop, and it is not fixed. The media keys (volume adjustment, play/pause, stop, next, prev) on the M1330 are touch-sensitive keys placed in a row above the normal keyboard. The keys always act as if they were held down for at least 680 milliseconds or so, even if you touch them for less time than that. So every time you press one, it is equivalent to holding it for seven tenths of a second. This is long enough to trigger typematic behavior in the default settings. The problem can be worked around by setting the typematic initial delay to greater than 700 milliseconds, but this is not a real solution.

Apparently GNOME uses these keys through DBus or something, and this prevents the typematic rate from becoming a factor. Hence, GNOME does not shoe repeated events when these keys are used. In KDE, these keys are detected directly in the same way as all other keys, so the typematic rate comes into play and generates multiple key press events.

Hence, in GNOME the keys work correctly, and do not generate multiple key presses. In KDE, each time you press one of these keys, it acts as if you had pressed it two, three, or four times. This makes the keys all but useless in KDE. The volume keys adjust the volume by triple the appropriate amount; the next and previous buttons skip 3 songs; The play/pause button and the mute button only work if they generates an odd number of key presses, since and even number of toggles has no effect.

Is there any way to run the GNOME volume control thingy in KDE until this is fixed?