Keyboard layout switched from German to English after [Testing Update] 2025-07-03

on one of my notebooks I do have trouble with the keyboard layout.
It was German, after the update from today it switched to English (US).

Even if I try to switch it via manjaro-settings-manager to back to German, it does not work *Fehler. Tastaturbelegung konnte nicht …
I do not have the time now to investigate in this / hope that anybody does have an idea what to do

inxi -Farz                                                                                                                                                                                   ✔  3s  
System:
  Kernel: 6.15.4-4-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.1.1
    clocksource: tsc avail: acpi_pm
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.15-x86_64
    root=UUID=68ea64a4-947b-492c-a6e5-569402c6690d rw udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: GNOME v: 48.3 tk: GTK v: 3.24.49 wm: gnome-shell
    tools: gsd-screensaver-proxy dm: GDM v: 48.0 Distro: Manjaro
    base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP EliteBook x360 1040 G8 Notebook PC
    v: SBKPF serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 31
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 8720 v: KBC Version 38.4B.00 serial: <superuser required>
    part-nu: 4P463EC#ABD uuid: <superuser required> UEFI: HP
    v: T93 Ver. 01.21.00 date: 04/15/2025
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 40.7 Wh (96.7%) condition: 42.1/54.0 Wh (77.9%)
    volts: 8.1 min: 7.7 model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion
    serial: <filter> status: discharging cycles: 138
CPU:
  Info: model: 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1145G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Tiger Lake gen: core 11 level: v4 note: check built: 2020
    process: Intel 10nm family: 6 model-id: 0x8C (140) stepping: 1
    microcode: 0xBC
  Topology: cpus: 1x dies: 1 clusters: 4 cores: 4 threads: 8 tpc: 2
    smt: enabled cache: L1: 320 KiB desc: d-4x48 KiB; i-4x32 KiB L2: 5 MiB
    desc: 4x1.2 MiB L3: 8 MiB desc: 1x8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1013 min/max: 400/2600 scaling: driver: intel_pstate
    governor: powersave cores: 1: 1013 2: 1013 3: 1013 4: 1013 5: 1013 6: 1013
    7: 1013 8: 1013 bogomips: 41779
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling mitigation: Microcode
  Type: ghostwrite status: Not affected
  Type: indirect_target_selection mitigation: Aligned branch/return thunks
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via
    prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
    sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Enhanced / Automatic IBRS; IBPB:
    conditional; PBRSB-eIBRS: SW sequence; BHI: SW loop, KVM: SW loop
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: i915 v: kernel alternate: xe arch: Xe process: Intel 10nm
    built: 2020-21 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, DP-4,
    HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2, HDMI-A-3, HDMI-A-4, HDMI-A-5 bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:9a49 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Quanta HP HD Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 bus-ID: 3-2:2 chip-ID: 0408:5349
    class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter>
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.18 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.8
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: X: loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa
    dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: AU Optronics 0x4f8a built: 2019 res: 1920x1080
    dpi: 158 gamma: 1.2 size: 309x174mm (12.17x6.85") diag: 355mm (14")
    ratio: 16:9 modes: 1920x1080
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: intel iris platforms: device: 0 drv: iris
    device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: iris surfaceless: drv: iris wayland:
    drv: iris x11: drv: iris
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.1.4-arch1.2
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Xe Graphics (TGL
    GT2) device-ID: 8086:9a49 memory: 14.52 GiB unified: yes display-ID: :0.0
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo x11: xdpyinfo,xprop
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl alternate: snd_hda_intel, snd_soc_avs,
    snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a0c8 class-ID: 0401
  API: ALSA v: k6.15.4-4-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off tools: N/A
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.4.6 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.3
    chip-ID: 8086:a0f0 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter>
  Info: services: httpd, NetworkManager, sshd, systemd-timesyncd,
    wpa_supplicant
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX201 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 1.1 bus-ID: 3-10:4 chip-ID: 8087:0026
    class-ID: e001
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: down bt-service: enabled,running
    rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: see --recommends
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller driver: vmd
    v: 0.6 port: N/A bus-ID: 00:0e.0 chip-ID: 8086:9a0b rev: class-ID: 0104
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 521.86 GiB (109.4%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: KIOXIA model: N/A
    size: 476.94 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s
    lanes: 4 tech: SSD serial: <filter> fw-rev: AGHA4101 temp: 33.9 C
    scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 459.81 GiB size: 451.52 GiB (98.20%)
    used: 231.95 GiB (51.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%)
    used: 91.8 MiB (30.7%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default) zswap: yes
    compressor: zstd max-pool: 20%
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 16.84 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 maj-min: 259:3
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 34.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: pm: pacman pkgs: 1601 libs: 464 tools: gnome-software,pamac,yay
    pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  Active pacman repo servers in: /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
    1: https://mirror.alpix.eu/manjaro/testing/$repo/$arch
    2: https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/manjaro/testing/$repo/$arch
    3: https://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/manjaro/testing/$repo/$arch
    4: https://manjaro.kurdy.org/testing/$repo/$arch
Info:
  Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est. available: 14.87 GiB used: 2.47 GiB (16.6%)
  Processes: 337 Power: uptime: 8m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: s2idle
    avail: deep wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform avail: shutdown, reboot,
    suspend, test_resume image: 5.93 GiB services: gsd-power,thermald,upowerd
    Init: systemd v: 257 default: graphical tool: systemctl
  Compilers: clang: 20.1.7 gcc: 15.1.1 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9
    running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.38

Same on the second notebook…
keyboard layout is switching to US english at GNOME logout, but at least on this machine it is saved within the session.

What is the reason and what do to to resolve this?
Thanks for any help!

I’ve had this and similar issues in the past. The really bad thing with this one was that it affected the login screen as well and it’s not possible to enter my pass code without an accessible AltGr-key - for what I found a work around.
I struggled for few days in vain to find an overall solution until the next update solved it automatically.

Last time I saw this kind of thing it was caused by fcitx5, so uninstalling that package fixed the issue.

pacman -Qs fcitx

However that was some time ago and I suspect it’s something else (not sure what).

Firefox translate gives me “Bug. Keyboard layout could not”, which isn’t very helpful.

Please post the entire error message, preferably in English (or perhaps even better, both languages).

The login screen and the session are not the same thing, there may be another setting for the login screen.

1 Like

fcitx is not installed.

This is really strange (for me).
There is not all the time an error message in “manjaro-settings-manager” when I try to switch the keyboard layout. It depends on the selected layout.

But: the manjaro-settings-manager just is not doing what it should - even if I am switching to “German” - in the terminal [alt gr] still is not working, so I try a reboot, and after this the keyboard layout is English(US) again…

This is as of the update yesterday - never had this before

  • the key that is not working is alt-gr.
  • and within manjaro-settings-manager a wrong keyboard layout is selected after every logout / login of after a reboot.
  • if i change to German keyboard layout in manjaro-settings-manager this layout is not working everywhere (e.g. not in terminal), but in Brave it is working
cd /etc                                                          ✔ 
    /etc  locale                                                        ✔ 
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_TIME=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_NAME=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_ADDRESS=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_TELEPHONE=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_MEASUREMENT=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_ALL=
    /etc  cat vconsole*                                                 ✔ 
# Written by systemd-localed(8) or systemd-firstboot(1), read by systemd-localed
# and systemd-vconsole-setup(8). Use localectl(1) to update this file.
XKBLAYOUT=de
XKBMODEL=pc105
KEYMAP=de
    /etc  localectl                                                     ✔ 
System Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
    VC Keymap: de
   X11 Layout: de
    X11 Model: pc105

This are the locale settings after a reboot - for me this looks correct, but still alt--gr is not working ... 

solved … what the hell …
it is an Gnome Extention that seems to be not compatible with Gnome 48.3…
Disabling “Logo-Menu” followed by a logout / login and everything seems to work as it should …

I could have tried this on my own before writing this thread …

Sorry for everybody reading this and trying to help for something that was so easy to resolve …

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