[CONFIGURATION] compose key stops working

[ilveroluca]

Hi,

I have selected my compose key through System Settings -> Input Devices -> Keyboard -> Advanced -> "Position of Compose Key". After I apply the setting, the key works right away and in all applications. However, after a while (say, a few hours) the compose key stops working. To make it work again I have to go back to System Settings, uncheck the key I had selected as my compose key, Apply the settings, check the key and Apply again.

I haven't correlated the compose key being "disabled" with any other event. Even the time at which this happens seems to be random. It does happen 2-3 times per day though, making it pretty annoying.

This has been happening since I upgraded to Kubuntu 22.04.1. The compose key worked fine before the upgrade.

Any suggestions on how to fix or better diagnose my problem?

Cheers!

[oshunluvr]

I'm not having that problem here using KDEneon. You need to be more precise with the timing of this and what you are doing and offer hardware specifics on your system and kernel version at a minimum. Since no one else has reported this (that i can find) you'll have to do the trouble shooting yourself.

Start by determining if it has an outside cause - in other words, is it something you're doing or just over time? To test this, boot up, log in and leave it alone for as long as you think necessary to have exceeded the usual amount of time where you notice it not working. You should disable power saving and monitor sleep for this test. After a suitable length of time, see if the compose key is not working. If it is still working - then you'll know it's something you are doing. If not, then it is something in the system. Seems more likely something you are doing or using is causing this.

Assuming it IS happening over time with no input from you - try and determine how long over time it's occurring and start reviewing logs for the time period. I'd also look at what's in crontab that might me a culprit.
If it's NOT happening over time, then try and determine what thing you are doing that's causing it.

In moth cases, you are going to have to check the compose key function at regular intervals. Like have kate or konsole open and every couple minutes test compose key use.

If you can narrow it down to what or when, you might find the cause and/or solution.

[jlittle]

In the past, 2 or 3 years ago, I've had such flakiness with shortcut keys. I think the settings files in .config are convoluted and can get messed up. My solution has been to reset all shortcuts, then apply the mappings I want, then leave it alone.

There are several settings files involved, at least:

• kglobalshortcutsrc
• khotkeysrc
• kxkbrc

The compose key setting appears to be in the last, but confusion from the others may affect the compose it. You could try renaming those files, log out and back in, and they are recreated with default values, losing your customizations, but gaining a deterministic set up.