Volume keys don't work inside a full-screen game

I think the solution to this bug, would also take care of https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/notify-osd/+bug/344978

Keys that are defined in gnome should always be catched and never reach the application under focus.
This seems to me a metacity/compiz bug.

Reasoning:
  - we loose functionality in SDL games if the keys aren't being catched at a lower level of the stack
  - certain fullscreen players leave fullscreen on any keypress (like flash)
  - possible overlaps of application based shortcuts are bugs: they make the usage of the gnome-keybindings inconsistent and dangerous. (imagine alt+tab being binded to something destructive)

I don't think Notify-OSD is the cause for this. The problem for that bug report is a Flash player problem. This problem has been around for a while, too:

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/7916/

Since I can't find another report on this issue (surprisingly), I'm confirming it.

This is a regression. In Ubuntu 9.04, I could change the volume while playing (for example) Briquolo or Hedgewars. In 10.04, I can't. I don't remember whether I could in 9.10.

Oops, sorry, I missed the part where this bug was in Jaunty.

Leonardo, can you give some examples of games where Ubuntu has the problem? Does it have the same problem in later Ubuntu versions?

I don't see how this could be a gnome-settings-daemon issue. gnome-settings-daemon has a passive grab on the volume keys, and it will get temporary focus during a keypress so that the keypresses are routed to g-s-d. If a fullscreen game has an active grab on the keyboard or pointer, then there is no way in the X protocol to break this and no way for g-s-d to get the keypresses

In 9.10 it wasn't possible too.

Em Sex, 2010-05-07 às 14:35 +0000, Matthew Paul Thomas escreveu:
> This is a regression. In Ubuntu 9.04, I could change the volume while
> playing (for example) Briquolo or Hedgewars. In 10.04, I can't. I don't
> remember whether I could in 9.10.
>
> ** Also affects: gnome-settings-daemon (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided
> Status: New
>
> ** Summary changed:
>
> - fullscreen games + volume control
> + Volume keys don't work inside a full-screen game (regression)
>
> ** Summary changed:
>
> - Volume keys don't work inside a full-screen game (regression)
> + Volume keys don't work inside a full-screen game
>

Actually, in all games (running natively). The games took control of the
keyboard, so it's not possible to change volume, mute sound, use
multimedia keys to stop/play musics.

Games using Wine doesn't have this problem. They don't capture
completely the keyboard (it's even possible to rotate compiz cube).

Em Sex, 2010-05-07 às 14:39 +0000, Matthew Paul Thomas escreveu:
> Oops, sorry, I missed the part where this bug was in Jaunty.
>
> Leonardo, can you give some examples of games where Ubuntu has the
> problem? Does it have the same problem in later Ubuntu versions?
>

So it is a limitation of X.org? I think that we have 2 types of
fullscreen apps here:

- "Fake" fullscreen: Wine apps, Firefox, Totem. They don't grab the
keyboard. Basically, they hide the window decoration and fill the screen
with the window.

- "True" fullscreen: Games. They grab the keyboard control, so Gnome
can't do anything. If an app like this crashes, you can't even call
System Monitor to kill it (like ctrl + alt + del in Windows).

Would be nice if the Games had the same behaviour than the other
programs.

Em Sex, 2010-05-07 às 15:18 +0000, Chris Coulson escreveu:
> I don't see how this could be a gnome-settings-daemon issue. gnome-
> settings-daemon has a passive grab on the volume keys, and it will get
> temporary focus during a keypress so that the keypresses are routed to
> g-s-d. If a fullscreen game has an active grab on the keyboard or
> pointer, then there is no way in the X protocol to break this and no way
> for g-s-d to get the keypresses
>

I have the same problem on Ubuntu 10.04... It is very annoying, when a game is running I can't lower it's sound...

My view is that in terms of usability, this is very poor.

People who game in windows expect their keys on their keyboard to work all the time, not just inside specific use-cases.

What are our options for a solution?

If anyone has a workaround for this, please post it here. I tried using xkeybinds but it also does not work when a full screen game hijacks the keyboard input.

This affects me as well in Ubuntu 10.10 x64 while playing the Linux versions of several of the games in the Humble Indie Bundles.

One workaround is to use gizmod as described in the following ubuntu forum thread.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1585664

It's not just annoying (especially when playing loud *shooting* games) it's even kinda security lack, imagine an unwanted program (viruslike) steals the keyboard an forces you to shutdown your PC in order to regain control...

I confirm this bug. Really annoying.
The solution should be as close to the hardware as possible, so no aplication have ability to lock it.

For example , when I push volume up button in my laptop
- information of pressing the key is processen in very deep level, and volume changes
- no aplication, is informed about pressing any key at all.
- informing apropriate system component about volume change, needed for example to notify-osd window about volume change.

Example is very simple and maybe not very correct, but the point is:
- processing such keys in deep level of system.

This would solve bug #344978 as well, and help avoid other similar bugs .

Basicly volume control buttons should work like ( or almost like ) completely analog hardware potentiometer connected directly to laptop speakers. In such configuration there is no problems and no place for bugs any at all.

This issue still exists in Xubuntu 11.10 (and presumably Ubuntu 11.10). Unfortunately, gizmod is no longer an easy solution because it was dropped from the Ubuntu 11.10 repositories due to the fact that it no longer compiles out of the box with the latest version of the Boost libraries.

I also have this problem. Keyboard/laptop volume controls won't work while running a full screen game.

This is a basic feature we have in Windows, and fixing this would help people have a smooth transition to gaming on GNU/Linux.

Does anybody know if there is any distro that have corrected this issue?

This is still a bug in 12.04 and it will presumably remain an issue for the foreseeable future. Has there been any indication about a potential fix for this, or is this an architectural issue? Will this potentially be solved by Wayland?

I would think that the rise of gaming on the Linux desktop (through the Ubuntu Software Center, the Humble Indie Bundles, and the coming launch of Steam for Ubuntu) would make this a bigger issue in the near future.

There is a workaround for this. I used to use this on Debian with a small set of packages.

Using acpid and amixer one can set an acpid rule to react at volume keys at a deeper level than the default sound daemon.
Use acpi_listen to discover your key codes and write a script like this (for example when pressing volume up):
amixer set Master 5+
This is more ALSA related, but pulseaudio will adjust its volume as well.

This is extremely annoying when a fullscreen application crashes. Your average user who doesn't know about the Ctrl+Alt+PrntScrn+K and Ctrl+Alt+F1 tricks will assume that the operating system crashed which is about the most significant usability issue you could possibly have.

And even for the experienced user, you either have to Ctrl+Alt+PrntScrn+K back to the login screen and have all your applications terminate, or you have to go to a fullscreen shell, terminate the process, exit the shell, and return to X. All just because some user application entered an infinite loop. Bad, bad, bad design.

I believe we should have some global shortcut, like Ctrl + Alt + Del on
Windows, that calls a task manager to allow the user to kill the
problematic process.

2012/10/8 Matt Pharoah <email address hidden>

> This is extremely annoying when a fullscreen application crashes. Your
> average user who doesn't know about the Ctrl+Alt+PrntScrn+K and
> Ctrl+Alt+F1 tricks will assume that the operating system crashed which
> is about the most significant usability issue you could possibly have.
>
> And even for the experienced user, you either have to
> Ctrl+Alt+PrntScrn+K back to the login screen and have all your
> applications terminate, or you have to go to a fullscreen shell,
> terminate the process, exit the shell, and return to X. All just because
> some user application entered an infinite loop. Bad, bad, bad design.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/388547
>
> Title:
> Volume keys don't work inside a full-screen game
>
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts:
> Confirmed
> Status in X.Org X server:
> Unknown
> Status in “gnome-settings-daemon” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> When I'm playing games in fullscreen mode, I cannot change the volume
> (laptop, HP tx2115nr with Jaunty) using my notebook keys. It's not
> possible to use my Play/Pause/Stop hotkeys (right side of my screen).
>
> I would like to change my volume without have to exit the game.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/388547/+subscriptions
>

Leonardo: That's a good idea, but it would never work due to the fact that the entire issue here is that Ubuntu allows apps to take control of the entire keyboard.

No special key combinations or multimedia keys are serviced by the window manager when full-screen games are running, so the only key combinations that work are those serviced by the OS and maybe the session manager.

The real fix is to mimic the behavior of other OSes in not allowing full-screen applications to completely override the window manager's keyboard handler. Unfortunately this is an X.Org issue, and they're probably never going to fix it because they just don't understand why they should have to.

Ubuntu will never be taken seriously as a desktop gaming platform until this is resolved. Maybe Valve will fix it for them as part of trying to make Ubuntu into a Steam platform :)

Are Wayland developers more open minded?

A while ago we wrote up some architecture and troubleshooting documents for hotkeys - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hotkeys

Some of that has gotten dated (e.g. we don't use HAL anymore), but it's still roughly descriptive. Many of the tools listed there are still useful in isolating where in the stack problems creep in.

I'd like to see if I can reproduce this issue locally. Can someone suggest a game (ideally a freely available one) that demonstrates this behavior?

Basically every single game that uses SDL full screen will trigger it.

Neverball, Battle for Wesnoth, Tremulous, Nexuiz, Xonotic, Hedgewars, Teeworlds, the list truly can go on.

When it will gonna fixed? Steam is coming to ubuntu..... And this annoying bug....

Same issue in 12.04 Ubuntu.
I would like to see steam games continue to prosper and release more to run on Linux but this is a major issue to my enjoyment of the games!
So before I start a game I should have to remember what the appropriate volume level is before starting the game and waiting for the menu to load.

Volume controls work in ever application I know of in windowed mode.
And doesn't work in steam games full screen.