Keyboard settings randomly change

n_t · 2013-11-02 19:02:49

At what appears to be random times my keyboard layout will change. There could be a pattern of events that cause it, but I have not noticed them. To fix the problem I just open the keyboard settings and flip my keyboard layout to Dell 105 4 key or 5 key.

I had a quick search of the forums but wasn't able to find anyone with the same problem. I'm running a fully upto-date arch linux where xfce was installed from the official package repository. Arch is running bare metal as the only operating system installed on the machine.

Ideally I'd like to know where to look for logs or errors so I can resolve these kind of problems myself and learn about xfce. But any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks

Sideburns · 2013-11-03 05:45:15

Have you checked either ~/.xsession-errors or /var/log/messages yet?

n_t · 2013-11-04 08:46:13

Hello Sideburns,

Unfortunately neither of those files exists on my machine.

Sideburns · 2013-11-04 09:02:47

In that case, there's something very seriously wrong with your computer. ~/.xsession-errors is a hidden file in your home directory (Notice that the file's name starts with a dot, making it hidden.) that's used to record all errors in your current session and /var/log/messages is the repository for all system messages that don't go anywhere else (i.e., most of them) and is only readable by root. I'd suggest that you check again.

n_t · 2013-11-04 11:15:25

Definitely don't have those files, I'll check on the arch forum to see if this is expected.

➜  log  pwd
/var/log
➜  log  ls -al
total 4180
drwxr-xr-x 10 root    root               4096 Nov  4 11:05 .
drwxr-xr-x 12 root    root               4096 Sep  4 16:34 ..
-rw-------  1 root    utmp               1152 Sep  4 18:05 btmp
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root               4096 Sep 12 10:14 cups
-rw-------  1 root    root              32032 Nov  4 11:05 faillog
drwxr-sr-x  3 root    systemd-journal    4096 Sep  4 16:57 journal
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root             292292 Oct 18 10:37 lastlog
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root            1653584 Nov  4 11:12 monitorix
-rw-r--r--  1 nobody  nobody          1014194 Nov  4 11:11 monitorix-httpd
drwxr-x---  2 http    log                4096 Oct 10 08:47 nginx
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root               4096 May 31 19:40 old
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root             157047 Oct 31 11:41 pacman.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root             430720 Oct 29 11:15 pm-powersave.log
-rw-r--r--  1 redis   redis                 0 Oct  1 18:50 redis.log
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root               4096 Oct  9 07:20 sa
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root              13738 Nov  4 11:05 slim.log
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root               4096 Mar  9  2013 speech-dispatcher
drwxrwxr-x  3 tomcat7 log                4096 Oct 30 12:03 tomcat7
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root               1181 Oct  7 09:53 vbox-install.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root                688 Oct  6 20:52 vbox-uninstall.log
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root               4096 Sep 23 20:56 wicd
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root                  0 Sep 23 20:59 wifi-radar.log
-rw-rw-r--  1 root    utmp             793344 Nov  4 11:11 wtmp
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root              38251 Nov  4 11:06 Xorg.0.log
-rw-r--r--  1 root    root              43726 Nov  4 09:26 Xorg.0.log.old

➜  ~  ls -al
total 616
drwx------ 52 nick nick   4096 Nov  4 11:13 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root   4096 Sep  4 18:00 ..
...
drwxr-xr-x  3 nick nick   4096 Oct  6 18:34 VMs
drwxr-xr-x  2 nick nick   4096 Sep 13 13:11 .wicd
-rw-------  1 nick nick     55 Nov  4 11:05 .Xauthority
drwx------  4 nick nick   4096 Sep 10 18:35 .xchat2
-rwxrwxrwx  1 nick nick    310 Nov  4 11:09 .xinitrc
drwx------  2 nick nick   4096 Sep  9 16:00 .xournal
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick   7802 Sep 21 15:26 .xscreensaver
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick    100 Oct 31  2012 .xsession
drwxr-xr-x  3 nick nick   4096 Sep 20 09:26 .yjp
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick  29752 Sep  6 17:27 .zcompdump
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick  31004 Sep 23 21:44 .zcompdump-nickT_Arch-5.0.2
-rw-------  1 nick nick 226060 Nov  4 11:13 .zsh_history
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick   1864 Oct 30 17:42 .zshrc
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick    267 Sep  4 18:01 .zshrc.pre-oh-my-zsh
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick     17 Oct 30 09:35 .zsh-update

ToZ · 2013-11-04 13:49:15

Arch doesn't have either of those log files. Since the conversion to systemd, you can check your log entries using journalctl. Note: "journalctl" on its own will only show user-based log entries, "sudo journalctl" will show system log entries.

Which login manager do you use? lightdm, slim, manual, etc...?

Last edited by ToZ (2013-11-04 13:51:15)

poltiser · 2013-11-04 14:22:33

I have no idea if it would help you, but as I am regularly using 3 different desktop keyboard layouts I found that in XFCE there is a double setting of layout: one from control panel and another from panel applet. To make it even more complicated, settings are reflected in settings control panel and system has some mechanism to reverse changes back to "factory defaults"...
What I do - I set all 3 keyboard layouts in both settings as global, not system predefined - can be regulated, and check in general XFCE settings editor control panel if those changes are recorded there.
Most of the time it works. Only from time to time layout changes with some updates to the system software.
It would be desirable for multilingual users to have a layout control panel giving a user opportunity to adjust all the parameters of the keyboard as it used to be possible in old Gnome 2 control panel. It should be available on the fly, not only from terminal...
Regards.

n_t · 2013-11-04 17:22:29

Thanks for the replies. I am using slim for login management.

ToZ · 2013-11-04 20:26:55

You can setup slim to log to ~/.xsession-errors by editing the file /etc/slim.conf and changing the line that reads:

login_cmd exec /bin/sh - ~/.xinitrc %session

...to read:

login_cmd           exec /bin/bash -login ~/.xinitrc %session >~/.xsession-errors 2>&1

...and restarting slim.

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#1 2013-11-02 19:02:49

Keyboard settings randomly change

#2 2013-11-03 05:45:15

Re: Keyboard settings randomly change

#3 2013-11-04 08:46:13

Re: Keyboard settings randomly change

#4 2013-11-04 09:02:47

Re: Keyboard settings randomly change

#5 2013-11-04 11:15:25

Re: Keyboard settings randomly change

#6 2013-11-04 13:49:15

Re: Keyboard settings randomly change

#7 2013-11-04 14:22:33

Re: Keyboard settings randomly change

#8 2013-11-04 17:22:29

Re: Keyboard settings randomly change

#9 2013-11-04 20:26:55

Re: Keyboard settings randomly change

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