Arrows and Enter keys not working as expected

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1

Hello,

I have a fresh installation of Manjaro with KDE Plasma desktop on DELL Latitude 7420 2in1 and there are some problems with key bindings.

Arrow keys can be used for scrolling in a browser but they are not working in a text field anywhere (browser, Konsole, Kate, system settings).
They work with Shift (selecting test), with Ctrl (jumping through words), and with Fn (like Home, End, PgUp, PgDown), but not alone.

The Enter key sometimes acts like a recently used key (a letter key or even Backspace) instead of creating a new line or submitting a command in Konsole. It works with Shift. I was not able to replicate the issue exactly, but it seems to be fixed for a while after switching between windows. This is not the case for arrow keys.

When I look in the Keyboard settings Preview, all keys highlight the correct part of the image. I tried several keyboard layouts from there with three language mappings (English US, English GB, and Czech) with the same result.

The same occurs with an integrated keyboard, USB keyboard, and a wireless one. Arrow keys on the num block (external keyboards) behave the same when NumLock off (not working correctly). When NumLock on, they write numbers as expected.

I used evtest with following results and I don’t see a problem there (but I’m definitely not an expert):

Event: time 1768899963.443050, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value 1c
Event: time 1768899963.443050, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 28 (KEY_ENTER), value 0
Event: time 1768899963.443050, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1768899971.034679, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value cb
Event: time 1768899971.034679, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 105 (KEY_LEFT), value 1
Event: time 1768899971.034679, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1768899971.130959, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value cb
Event: time 1768899971.130959, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 105 (KEY_LEFT), value 0
Event: time 1768899971.130959, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1768899972.059939, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value c8
Event: time 1768899972.059939, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 103 (KEY_UP), value 1
Event: time 1768899972.059939, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1768899972.137137, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value c8
Event: time 1768899972.137137, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 103 (KEY_UP), value 0
Event: time 1768899972.137137, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1768899972.691006, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value cd
Event: time 1768899972.691006, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 106 (KEY_RIGHT), value 1
Event: time 1768899972.691006, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1768899972.804481, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value cd
Event: time 1768899972.804481, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 106 (KEY_RIGHT), value 0
Event: time 1768899972.804481, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1768899973.436270, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value d0
Event: time 1768899973.436270, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 108 (KEY_DOWN), value 1
Event: time 1768899973.436270, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1768899973.511815, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value d0
Event: time 1768899973.511815, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 108 (KEY_DOWN), value 0
Event: time 1768899973.511815, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

Is there an easy fix for that or I’m supposed to change the key mapping in the configuration files?
Thank you for your help.

2

:waving_hand:

Hello there and welcome to Manjaro Forum.
I had the same issue but it was with my Lenovo T490. I figured out that via BIOS. There is a setting that changes arrows, control, F keys and so on to have a different behavior. I don’t remember the setting that does this effect but try to take a look on BIOS, UEFI, etc…

:vulcan_salute:

3

With a laptop - which has a standard keyboard (that is without the number pad) you need to be aware if NumLock has been activated or not.

  • If the number pad behaves like cursor keys - NumLock is off
  • If the number pad prints numbers - NumLock is on.

The above is the normal expected behaviour.

Whether or not NumLock is on or off at login, depends on your system’s settings.

When your system - as I understand your issue - act weird - I would check the firmware as suggested above.

4

Thank you,

There is only one related option in the BIOS for my Dell. The Fn Lock Option allows to lock the Fn key via Fn+Esc. With this option off, I need to hold the Fn key to use actions like changing screen brightness via F6 and F7 keys or mute/unmute my mic using F4.
Unfortunately changing the option in BIOS had no effect on arrow keys or Enter at all.

1 Like
5

When an external keyboard is connected, I can see if the NumLock is on or off. And it only changes behavior of the numeric block from writing numbers to acting like arrow keys (which are not acting correctly).

6

So you are saying the number pad - when NumLock is off - does not navigate like the normal arrow keys?

This may depend on which keyboard layout you choose.

A 104/105-key keyboard will work as one will expect when using Plasma.

I use a 104-key L-shaped Enter key, and there is no issues with Plasma.

If you have issues with the number pad on the keyboard, I suspect the keyboard itself may be at fault.

This do indicate that your configuration is somehow at fault.

Plasma may behave strange at times. It does create it’s own configuration files which may include Plasma specific configuration which then will either conflict or override the system configuration.

The best you can do is to investigate the plasma runtime configurations in ~/.config/*rc

7

One more finding:
Everything works correctly when I booted from a USB drive with a live distro. The same I used for installation.

8

That was the one! Thank you!

I removed plasmakeyboardrc and kxkbrc, restarted and then made the locales keyboard configuration again.

Only to be clear: The problem was with both dedicated and numpad arrow keys on all external keyboards (well i have only two available) and also the internal one (without numpad).

1 Like
9

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