nautilus/scim conflicts on feisty

[Keli Hu]

Binary package hint: nautilus

My locale is zh_CN.UTF-8.

Steps to reproduce:

Open nautilus, right click on a file/directory, choose "Rename", then press ctrl+space to invoke scim, you'll find that scim is not showing up, and you cannot enter anything to rename the file/directory either.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Thanks for your bug report. Can you try reconfiguring and see if using a different invocation shortcut works?

[Keli Hu (hukeli)]

I tried shift_space, which is another shortcut, and the problem remains.

Okay I think I found how this problem comes around. This problem is highly CJK-related. In short, if environmental variable GTK_IM_MODULE is set to xim, the problem occurs, if it is set to scim, the problem disappears. Here is the simplified steps to verify the problem:

1. Open nautilus, press Ctrl+L to bring out the location bar, and right click in the location bar, find the "Input Methods" submenu, select "XIM". Now press Ctrl_Space or any shortcut to invoke scim, and you should be able to do so, because this problem doesn't exist in the location bar, but this way you set nautilus to use XIM.
2. Right click on a file/directory, choose "Rename", then press ctrl+space to invoke scim, now you should see the problem.

So, by default the problem doesn't exist; but it would still be a problem to many CJK users, since many of them would do "im-switch -s scim_xim", because this way env variables GTK_IM_MODULE and QT_IM_MODULE are set to xim, and is more compatible, for example, you don't have to mannually install scim-qtimm to input Chinese in QT programs, and Skype won't crash.

I'd really suggest the scim maintainer to adjust the symlink /etc/alternatives/xinput-zh_CN to point to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim_xim instead of /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim as default. It would solve a few problems for novice Ubuntu CJK users. The only downside is this bug that I'm talking about here, hopefully you can find out why and fix it, then it would be perfect.

Many thanks.

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

The symptom sounds quite like https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=201284,

I've heard about such issues for quite a long time (~ 2 years), but never was able to reproduce it. I don't have an Ubuntu system now, but I can't reproduce this in Debian etch, with en_US.UTF-8 locale and GTK_IM_MODULE set to xim.

There is definitely more needed to trigger this bug (the reproducer in Redhat bugzilla works for me, but I seldom saw this bug, especially in the recent months).

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

Is this bug still reproducible in the final feisty release (7.04)?

[Keli Hu (hukeli)]

Hi guys,

I just had a fresh install of feisty on a new PC, and the problem
cannot be reproduced by the steps I provided before. But still you can
reproduce it by the following steps:

1. Open a terminal and run "im-switch -s scim_xim". This way you set
xim to the default.
2. Logout and login.
3. Open nautilus, try to rename any file/folder, or press Ctrl-L to
bring out the location bar and type anything you want, then you'll
find the problem.

BTW, I never had this kind of problem on Debian etch/sid either. Also
if I just use the default settings of scim, I had problems entering
Chinese in firefox sometimes, typically in a gmail chat box when
trying to type a series of Chinese characters.

On 5/14/07, Ming Hua <email address hidden> wrote:
> Is this bug still reproducible in the final feisty release (7.04)?
>
> ** Changed in: scim (Ubuntu)
> Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info
>
> --
> nautilus/scim conflicts on feisty
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/90043
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[panic_button (panic-button)]

Yeah...SCIM screws up a lot of apps when I use Ubuntu. I have to use
im-switch with xim or some other interface, which allows the programs
to load and not crash regularly, but it still messes up nautilus and a
few other things.

~Nathan

On 6/15/07, Keli Hu <email address hidden> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> I just had a fresh install of feisty on a new PC, and the problem
> cannot be reproduced by the steps I provided before. But still you can
> reproduce it by the following steps:
>
> 1. Open a terminal and run "im-switch -s scim_xim". This way you set
> xim to the default.
> 2. Logout and login.
> 3. Open nautilus, try to rename any file/folder, or press Ctrl-L to
> bring out the location bar and type anything you want, then you'll
> find the problem.
>
> BTW, I never had this kind of problem on Debian etch/sid either. Also
> if I just use the default settings of scim, I had problems entering
> Chinese in firefox sometimes, typically in a gmail chat box when
> trying to type a series of Chinese characters.
>
> On 5/14/07, Ming Hua <email address hidden> wrote:
> > Is this bug still reproducible in the final feisty release (7.04)?
> >
> > ** Changed in: scim (Ubuntu)
> > Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info
> >
> > --
> > nautilus/scim conflicts on feisty
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/90043
> > You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> > of the bug.
> >
>
> --
> nautilus/scim conflicts on feisty
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/90043
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

On Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 06:54:27AM -0000, Keli Hu wrote:
>
> I just had a fresh install of feisty on a new PC, and the problem
> cannot be reproduced by the steps I provided before. But still you can
> reproduce it by the following steps:
>
> 1. Open a terminal and run "im-switch -s scim_xim". This way you set
> xim to the default.
> 2. Logout and login.
> 3. Open nautilus, try to rename any file/folder, or press Ctrl-L to
> bring out the location bar and type anything you want, then you'll
> find the problem.

Thanks for testing.

> BTW, I never had this kind of problem on Debian etch/sid either.

That's probably due to the different configuration settings in Debian
and Ubuntu. Ubuntu changes a few settings in /etc/scim/config, while
Debian ships the upstream default. I never had time to do a detailed
test, though.

> Also
> if I just use the default settings of scim, I had problems entering
> Chinese in firefox sometimes, typically in a gmail chat box when
> trying to type a series of Chinese characters.

This is probably the (claimed) libX11 bug related to scim's
/FrontEnd/X11/Dynamic setting. Redhat bugzilla [1] has more
information.

1. https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7869

Ming
2007.06.22

[Felix Braun (felix-braun)]

I'm seeing what looks like the same bug in gutsy. Once I right-click on a file and the filename entry opens, most of the time nautilus accepts no more key strokes whatsoever. Left cursor doesn't work, CTRL-space doesn't nor do any of the normal keys.

The issue feels like some kind of race condition because rarely some initial keystrokes get trhough to nautilus until it accepts no more further keystrokes.

The issue goes away after stopping scim.

I have hit a similar problem once with claws-mail. But appearently the issue occurs much less often there. With nautilus, it's very reproducible for me.

I'm running scim with a de_DE.UTF-8 locale if that matters.

Ming: reading the freedesktop bug, it sounds like the one I'm experiencing.

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

This is most likely the same bug as bug #66104.

Please following the instructions there and change "/FrontEnd/X11/Dynamic" setting in ~/.scim/config file, and see if it fixes the problem.

[Keli Hu (hukeli)]

Yeah, I've read that thread a few weeks ago and followed your
suggestion, and that fixes the problem. :-)

On 9/9/07, Ming Hua <email address hidden> wrote:
> This is most likely the same bug as bug #66104.
>
> Please following the instructions there and change
> "/FrontEnd/X11/Dynamic" setting in ~/.scim/config file, and see if it
> fixes the problem.
>
> --
> nautilus/scim conflicts on feisty
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/90043
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Felix Braun (felix-braun)]

I can confirm that setting /FrontEnd/X11/Dynamic to true fixes the problem for me too. However, this workaround is sub-optimal for me because it breaks dead keys (as already noted in bug #66104) :-(

Well at least, I now have the possibility to enter all kinds of text reliably, it's just difficult to mix chinese and french, but this limitation is already a huge improvement.

Thanks a lot, for the workaround.

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

Keli Hu and Felix Braun, thanks for the confirmation.

I'm marking this as a duplicate of bug #66104 then.