[Desktop] Keyboard sound keys don't work

[sgage]

It seems that this is a perennial problem with KDE. I have a plain vanilla keyboard from Amazon. The sound keys work with every other distro I've used, which is a lot. Works fine with Windows. I have searched and tried the obvious things. Nothing works. Is there something about Kubuntu 26.04 that I need to know about? I'd really like to get this sorted. Any suggestions?

TIA

[die.boer]

Keyboard sound keys don't work

just to be clear , do you mean if you press arrow up or down ( or whatever keys ) the sound volume don't increase/decrease ?

[claydoh]

s there something about Kubuntu 26.04 that I need to know about?

No, this is extremely odd. Do all the other function keys work? Do you need to use an "fn" key to activate these?

What about using other Ubuntu 26.04 variants, such as Ubuntu proper, etc?

There is nothing different about Kubuntu in this area, as it is more at the hardware level, and it should act the same under Ubuntu 26.04

[die.boer]

in terminal run

sudo libinput debug-events

Now press Volume Up, Volume Down, and Mute a few times.
You should see something similar to:
KEY_VOLUMEUP pressed
KEY_VOLUMEUP released
KEY_VOLUMEDOWN pressed
KEY_VOLUMEDOWN released
tell us if you do see it or don't...

PS: if command not found , then

sudo apt update

sudo apt install libinput-tools​

and try again
(press ctrl+c to stop running command)

(your on wayland yes?)

[sgage]

just to be clear , do you mean if you press arrow up or down ( or whatever keys ) the sound volume don't increase/decrease ?

Yes. The 'increase volume', 'decrease volume', and 'mute' keys have no effect. They work fine with the MATE DE, or Gnome for that matter. But not with KDE. They don't work in Debian KDE, either.

[sgage]

No, this is extremely odd. Do all the other function keys work? Do you need to use an "fn" key to activate these?

What about using other Ubuntu 26.04 variants, such as Ubuntu proper, etc?

There is nothing different about Kubuntu in this area, as it is more at the hardware level, and it should act the same under Ubuntu 26.04

This is not extremely odd. If you do a quick search, as I did, you will see it has been a recurring issue over the years. These keys work as designed in Ubuntu proper, Ubuntu MATE, Debian MATE. They do NOT work in Debian KDE.

[sgage]

in terminal run

sudo libinput debug-events

Now press Volume Up, Volume Down, and Mute a few times.
You should see something similar to:
KEY_VOLUMEUP pressed
KEY_VOLUMEUP released
KEY_VOLUMEDOWN pressed
KEY_VOLUMEDOWN released
tell us if you do see it or don't...

PS: if command not found , then

sudo apt update

sudo apt install libinput-tools​

and try again
(press ctrl+c to stop running command)

(your on wayland yes?)

Yes, libinput does show the results you indicated. And yes, this is KDE on Wayland.

In the keyboard/shortcuts settings, the keys assigned to Kmix are indeed Volume Up, Volume Down, and Volume Mute. I tried deleting and reassigning, but no joy. However, if I assign, e.g., Alt-M to Kmix mute function, Alt-M will indeed mute the volume.

[jrwatts]

In the keyboard/shortcuts settings, the keys assigned to Kmix are indeed Volume Up, Volume Down, and Volume Mute. I tried deleting and reassigning, but no joy. However, if I assign, e.g., Alt-M to Kmix mute function, Alt-M will indeed mute the volume.

Have you tried assigning them to the Audio Volume System Service instead of to Kmix? That's how mine are configured, and they work just fine. I just experimented and re-assigned them to Amarok (the media player I use), and they then worked fine to adjust only Amarok's volume instead of the system volume. Sounds like there may be a bug in Kmix?

Edit: Okay, my system is using plasma-pa rather than Kmix; is there some reason you need Kmix?

[sgage]

Have you tried assigning them to the Audio Volume System Service instead of to Kmix? That's how mine are configured, and they work just fine. I just experimented and re-assigned them to Amarok (the media player I use), and they then worked fine to adjust only Amarok's volume instead of the system volume. Sounds like there may be a bug in Kmix?

Edit: Okay, my system is using plasma-pa rather than Kmix; is there some reason you need Kmix?

There is no 'Audio Volume System Service' under System Services in Shortcuts. I have no particular need for Kmix - it was suggested in one of the comments that came up when I searched this issue. Since I have and have never had an 'Audio Volume System Service', it was suggested as a way to have something to assign the keys to! Anyway plasma-pa is installed. Sound works fine. I feel like there's a piece of software missing...

[sgage]

Hmmm... on my system there is no plasma-pa.service. I have reinstalled plasma-pa, and still nothing. It seems to install a bunch of documentation and not a lot else. Something strange going on here...

[edit: there is an org.kde.plasma.volume.so

in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt6/plugins/plasma/applets

but it's not getting started. What can I do to make it work?]