[regression] Gnome, mouse locate-pointer config stops multimedia keys from working after Intrepid upgrade

Hi,
thank you for reporting this.
Did Intrepid support these buttons out-of-the-box?
Are you using a dell-ppa?

greetings

Martin

Yes, it did.
Keys worked fine in Intrepid for several weeks after upgrade from Hardy to Intrepid.

No, I'm using official Ubuntu repository only.

I am having a similar problem, which started right after upgrading to Intrepid from Hardy. I'm using Compiz, and used Compix Configuration Mgr to reassign some keys, some of which work and some don't now.

The keys I know that no longer work are mute (XF86AudioMute), home (XF86HomePage), E-mail (XF86Mail), Media (XF86AudioMedia), and media control keys like XF86AudioPlay, I believe. I don't actually use them very often.

The keys are recognized; if I try to assign them in either the CCM app, or the keyboard shortcuts, they get picked up. In fact, I can assign the home page key using the combination of Alt-Home.

It must be something in my home directory, as I can create a new login account, and they work there, except the Home key brings up Nautilus instead of my web browser.

Also, I went through and temporarily deleted the folders .gconf and .gconfd, and the keys (at least some of them) started working. But I've gone through the gnome configuration editor, trying everything I could, and didn't find anything that would have any effect.

I'm willing to try any other suggestions.

After removing ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/peripherals/mouse/%gconf.xml and restarting Gnome, all multimedia keys
starts to work again.
I've attached contents of removed file.

1. This bug (at least for me) was not a duplicate of 294400.
2. As unlikely as it sounded to me, especially after looking at the file, I tried the method of Voroshilov Vladimir, removed my %gconf.xml file, and it fixed my problem. The mute key works now, along with the the play controls. Previously, I could get some of the application keys to work by using the Compiz Config utility, but not by using the standard gnome keyboard settings. Now they work correctly, too.

Thank you, Voroshilov Vladimir, for your fix. I don't think I would have been able to isolate it to that file.

This is not a duplicate of 294400...

After reading Vladimirs suggestion, I have found that I can consistently stop my play, next, prev and mute buttons from working by enabeling the locate mouse pointer feature in the mouse preferences. When I disable the feature, the multimedia keys start working again.

This behaviour is consistent across several 8.10 installations, one of them just a couple of weeks old.

Changed bug to represent fact that this is a Gnome problem rather than the xorg bug #294400

"After reading Vladimirs suggestion, I have found that I can consistently stop my play, next, prev and mute buttons from working by enabeling the locate mouse pointer feature in the mouse preferences. When I disable the feature, the multimedia keys start working again."

Confirmed on my laptop (a Dell 1420n). The fast-forward/rewind/play/stop keys work if and only if the locate-mouse-pointer feature is turned off. I'm also using intrepid.

The gnome-control-center package provides the gnome-mouse-settings binary that toggles this, though I'm not sure where the actual bug lies within the gnome stack. Confirming based on comments.

Robert - this is an Intrepid bug. Please take a look.

Also confirming. When /apps/desktop/gnome/peripherals/mouse/locate_pointer is True the multimedia keys work if you hold them down for a short time, then they are detected on release. When it is False they behave as normal.

Further observations when locate_pointer is enabled:
- The multimedia keys don't work reliably when held down. They appear to work randomly <5% of the time they're pressed. It may be the key repeat that triggers this when holding them down.
- Volume up/down always work, volume mute behaves like the other multimedia keys
- When Rhythmbox was open I was mashing the media keys and then rhythmbox locked up for a few seconds. When it came back all/some of the keys pressed were activated and the new notification system flashed the operations in quick succession.

Uninstalled notify-osd and ran gnome-settings-daemon in the foreground:
gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon 2>&1 | tee /tmp/gsd.log

This shows the error messages about reaching the notification service don't occur reliably - rules out notify-osd as causing the problem..