Bug 445284

Summary:	Keyboard layout switcher not working properly after 5.23.3 update
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Alessandro <alessandro.manca.g>
Component:	Keyboard Layout widget	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED NOT A BUG
Severity:	normal	CC:	butirsky, nate
Priority:	NOR	Keywords:	regression
Version First Reported In:	5.23.3
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Alessandro 2021-11-10 16:13:44 UTC

SUMMARY
I switch between two keyboard layouts pretty often, and after the update to 5.23.3 switching layouts has problems

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Configure two keyboard layouts and a shortcut to cycle them on the settings menu
2. Set switching policy to global
3. Cycle keyboard layouts with the shortcut and the system tray icon on the firefox search bar, the chromium one and without any text prompt selected

OBSERVED RESULT
The keyboard switches layout only when a text prompt is selected. And the shortcut to cycle the works only in chromium, not in firefox. Clicking the system tray icon works for both chromium and firefox. If a text prompt is not selected then the keyboard layout changes to us and stays there (even if us is not one of the options for some reason)

EXPECTED RESULT
The keyboard layout should switch properly with both the shortcut and the system try icon and given the global option being selected it should stay like that for all applications

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: 
macOS: 
Linux/KDE Plasma: Arch Linux kernel 5.14.16
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.23.3
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.87.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Comment 1 Andrey 2021-11-10 17:20:30 UTC

Please make sure IBus packages are not installed.
Can you reproduce that behavior in VM?

Comment 2 Alessandro 2021-11-10 17:56:49 UTC

(In reply to Andrey from comment #1)
> Please make sure IBus packages are not installed.
> Can you reproduce that behavior in VM?

I don't seem to be able to reproduce the behaviour in a VM. I don't have the ibus package installed in my machine though

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2021-11-10 18:01:26 UTC

I'm having trouble reproducing this issue. I have two layouts set, global mode enabled (the default), and I use Ctrl+Alt+K (the default). But I don't know what "the text prompt" is referring to. What do you mean by "the system tray icon on the firefox search bar, the chromium one and without any text prompt selected".

Can you clarify?

Comment 4 Alessandro 2021-11-10 18:03:46 UTC

I seem to have found the problem, a package that I have erroneously installed was interfering, sorry to have bothered you

Comment 5 Andrey 2021-11-10 18:05:16 UTC

Congrats! What was it?

Comment 6 Alessandro 2021-11-10 18:13:14 UTC

fcitx, wanted to try a thing and forgot to uninstall it completely after that, after I tried on the VM it came to my mind

Comment 7 Andrey 2021-11-10 18:16:57 UTC

Ah, that and IBus were always interfere with XKB in a mysterious way to me..
Should we open a separate issue for that, what do you think Nate?

Comment 8 Nate Graham 2021-11-11 01:06:39 UTC

Yeah, IBus and FCITX will conflict, and you should use only one. And they have to be configured properly, too.

Not sure what we can do here in KDE code to improve this situation. I'm not very knowledgeable about input methods. Do you have any ideas Andrey?

Comment 9 Andrey 2021-11-11 11:57:26 UTC

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with these two technology closely enough.
But maybe awareness of them on Plasma side can be improved - at least, I know in Gnome settings you was able (seems no more) to explicitly set if you want IBus or XKB, so I'm not sure if that sort of conflict can happen there.. Tests welcome, BTW.