keyboard language text indicator constant appear/disappear

[Yousuf 'Jay' Philips]

Ubuntu Mate 17.10 Beta 1

Steps:
1. open mate tweak and change to Redmond layout
2. notice that keyboard icon in the taskbar doesnt have any text next to it
3. open up the mate menu or an application
4. notice that keyboard icon in the taskbar now has a 'US' text next to it

[Etienne Papegnies (etienne-papegnies)]

How do you get this indicator to appear? I can't find it in the list of panel applets.

[nadrimajstor (ipejic)]

@Etienne You need to have, at least, two keyboard layouts for Layouts Indicator to appear.

@Yousuf Interesting observation. Thank you. Now I have some clue to why (after switching to Redmond layout) Language Indicator disappeared as I observed it's sudden absence until reboot. (Need to investigate is remote desktop client additional culprit)

[Etienne Papegnies (etienne-papegnies)]

OK, I can confirm this issue except in my case the text is the whole applet so switching to redmond means there's nothing left.

[Yousuf 'Jay' Philips (philipz85)]

@nadrimajstor: I only had 1 keyboard layout listed in the Input Method Configuration and the Keyboard Preferences dialogs

[Yousuf 'Jay' Philips (philipz85)]

So the issue also happens in the Contemporary, Cuptertino, Mutiny, and Pantheon layouts.

[Dusan Stojadinovic (dstoya)]

Hi all,
I also have this issue. Keyboard language indicator is lost after reboot or if I change panel layout. It is same for me on two installations, one i virtual box and another is clean install on hdd.

[tlk (sarcasticskull)]

Can confirm this. The problem runs deeper, there are two indicators from separate applets - one configured to show a flag for the current layout the other is a 2 letter code. The latter is one that keeps popping up *when you click on the desktop*. i.e. it seems that caja (it still manages the desktop right?) behaves differently from just about every other app...

It's really frustrating cos layout switching in Xorg/DEs was historically troublesome since the majority of FOSS devs are English-speaking (or at least use the latin layout) obviously.

One thing that I look for in a distro/DE pairing is that it does the basic things reliably - and this bug unfortunately discredits ubuntu-mate (of which I'm a user and a supporter) in this regard.

A big let down for me... Please could the devs just get the applets in order? It's just about getting rid of or turning off by default the offending stuff. Be it the ubuntu/canonical or gnome/redhat stuff.

Currently (on 17.10) I have to use BOTH applets cos neither has those basics I spoke of earlier right on its own... I hoped this would've been fixed in 18.04 considering it's an LTS release. But now it's in beta and got even worse.
Please fix it - ubuntu/mate is about the only sane combo (have been?) offering a safe and reliable experience almost out of the box for me.

Thanks in advance, Alec.

PS I'd start with dumping compiz/compton/whatever from the distro. Compiz for one brings a lot of outdated gnome2-related DCONF garbage. I wouldn't care if I hadn't got to traverse dconf/gsettings dark internals to set some stuff right...

[tlk (sarcasticskull)]

damn just seen the bug filed against 17.10... hadn't seen it in this version (there are other bugs with the applets tho) but have hit it instantly as soon as I booted in the 18.10 beta live

[tlk (sarcasticskull)]

18.04 beta I meant

[Luke Renaud (luke-renaud)]

This problem is a bit more critical than first meets the eye. The two letter US code shows up when in a text input context of some sort, and disappears when such input doesn't make sense. This leads to an unfortunate case where attempting to click on the menu item when the code is visible, switches to a context where it disappears, and the entire desktop becomes unresponsive to mouse and keyboard input.

I've attached a short video showing this effect in 18.04 beta1. What is not shown is the way to escape this locked state this problem is to switch to a virtual terminal, and force a new instance of mate-panel to be launched.

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

I think this bug is related to bug #1767765 (Clicking on fcitx applet hangs Ubuntu MATE)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Babak (babak7)]

I am using Debian 10:
Linux Vostro430a 4.19.0-8-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.98-1 (2020-01-26) x86_64 GNU/Linux
with mate desktop manger:
version: 1.20.4

It seems that some applications "such as firefox I was on youtube and Telegram when this happened to me" over ride this "en" indicator
I was able to fix it as follows:
open control center: ( Usually System -> Control Center)
Then go to Keyboard-> go to Layout Tab on the top -> UNCLICK Seprate layout for each window"

That fixed the problem for me.

Now you can click it back again if you want and it still remains there.