Xfce Forum

mataratones

Member

Registered: 2012-11-12

Posts: 8

Caps Lock issue

Longtime Xfce user, now on Linux Mint.  In the last few months, I've noticed that my caps lock key is behaving strangely:  it not only capitalizes letters, but it acts as though shift is down when pressing any other key.  This means that the special characters above numbers show up, but, even worse, the space bar doesn't work because apparently shift + space is not a space.

I have looked everywhere I can think of to find this setting and change it, but I can't figure out where it's coming from.  Can anyone help me?

mint4all

Member

From: off the map

Registered: 2018-08-21

Posts: 276

Re: Caps Lock issue

Welcome to this forum!

In my experience, Mint's XFCE4-spin is exceptionally stable and respects / preserves any custom key mappings across updates & upgrades. What that means is that the system is unliekly to have changed on you. In my experience of upcycling a number of older systems, erratic keyboard behavior generally means that some of your keys are beginning to fail, or are altogether broken. My usual go-to fix is to swap keyboards. Perhaps you can test this with another keyboard?

Cheers, m4a

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Linux Mint 21.3 -- xfce 4.18 ... Apple iMAC -- Lenovo, Dell, HP Desktops and Laptops -- Family & Community Support

mataratones

Member

Registered: 2012-11-12

Posts: 8

Re: Caps Lock issue

Good thought, but no.  I plugged in a different keyboard that I know works fine on a different computer, and I got the same behaviour.  Not to say that this keyboard may not have some issues, but clearly the particular problem of caps lock activating a "shift" on every key and not just letters is system wide.

eriefisher

Member

From: ON, Canada

Registered: 2008-10-25

Posts: 528

Re: Caps Lock issue

I've never seen this behavior. What keyboard layout are you using and have you tried to change it?

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Siduction
Debian Sid
Xfce 4.18

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Caps Lock issue

Check your accessibility settings at Settings Manager > Accessibility > Keyboard? Specifically "Sticky Keys". Is anything enabled?

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mataratones

Member

Registered: 2012-11-12

Posts: 8

Re: Caps Lock issue

Check your accessibility settings at Settings Manager > Accessibility > Keyboard? Specifically "Sticky Keys". Is anything enabled?

No sticky keys enabled.

mataratones

Member

Registered: 2012-11-12

Posts: 8

Re: Caps Lock issue

I've never seen this behavior. What keyboard layout are you using and have you tried to change it?

Well, what do you know.  I am using a perfectly normal US keyboard, but recently I had added a Hebrew layout option.  I didn't think that could be it because I wasn't actually using that layout, but, sure enough, I removed it and the issue went away.  It seems like a pretty serious bug when your keyboard layout causes issues with *other* layouts.  I wasn't actually using the Hebrew layout at the moment so no big loss, but it seems like it's going to be a problem when I start learning it seriously.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Caps Lock issue

What version of Xfce are you using? What version of libxfce4ui?

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mataratones

Member

Registered: 2012-11-12

Posts: 8

Re: Caps Lock issue

What version of Xfce are you using? What version of libxfce4ui?

4.16
4.16.1

mint4all

Member

From: off the map

Registered: 2018-08-21

Posts: 276

Re: Caps Lock issue

I've never seen this behavior. What keyboard layout are you using and have you tried to change it?

Well, what do you know.  I am using a perfectly normal US keyboard, but recently I had added a Hebrew layout option.  I didn't think that could be it because I wasn't actually using that layout, but, sure enough, I removed it and the issue went away.  It seems like a pretty serious bug when your keyboard layout causes issues with *other* layouts.  I wasn't actually using the Hebrew layout at the moment so no big loss, but it seems like it's going to be a problem when I start learning it seriously.

It looks like this behavior also was an issue on Mint's Cinnamon edition, and was discussed and solved @ https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=367287 ... Might be a good idea for XFCE to look at and adopt Cinnamon's handling of this setting? Cheers, m4a

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Linux Mint 21.3 -- xfce 4.18 ... Apple iMAC -- Lenovo, Dell, HP Desktops and Laptops -- Family & Community Support

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: Caps Lock issue

What version of Xfce are you using? What version of libxfce4ui?

4.16
4.16.1

I just tested this with Xfce 4.16 and 4.18 and the issue exists in both versions (I test using the Caps Lock + space bar). However, on my test system running the pre-4.20 code, the issue does not present itself. There was a lot of work done recently on this code and it appears to have resolved the issue. Unfortunately, you may need to wait until 4.20 is released and Linux Mint is packaging it, before you see a resolution.

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mataratones

Member

Registered: 2012-11-12

Posts: 8

Re: Caps Lock issue

What version of Xfce are you using? What version of libxfce4ui?

4.16
4.16.1

I just tested this with Xfce 4.16 and 4.18 and the issue exists in both versions (I test using the Caps Lock + space bar). However, on my test system running the pre-4.20 code, the issue does not present itself. There was a lot of work done recently on this code and it appears to have resolved the issue. Unfortunately, you may need to wait until 4.20 is released and Linux Mint is packaging it, before you see a resolution.

Thank you!