Multimedia keys on keyboard in cinnamon stopped working after Update

Support
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Since the update to cinnamon 4.8.0 recently the multimedia keys on my keyboard (play/pause, forward, back) stopped working in spotify and all the other applications they were working in previously. When pressing the forward and back keys I just get a not available sign on the screen (the crossed circle), pressing play/pause weirdly triggers a screenshot.

I’m guessing the keybindings have somehow changed, but I can’t find where to change them back or understand why they changed in the first place. Anyone know about this issue? How can I fix this?

1 Like
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I’m seeing the same thing after the update on my T61 and T420 Thinkpads.

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Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts

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I checked there and the keybindings seem to be set correctly. Still don’t work correctly though… Something seems broken.

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Try reinstalling udev

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This is also happening on Arch systems Seems there is a udev issue, reinstalling the three packages should fix it:
sudo pacman -S systemd systemd-libs libgudev

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This didn’t work for me, I keep having the same issues… has it worked for anyone else?

Edit: Before anyone tells me to, I also rebooted after reinstalling :wink:

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Me too, neither! :grinning:

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Was the system restarted?

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Yes, I rebooted. I tried again just now with the same result. Pressing play/pause still captures a screenshot.

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Yeah, something got screwed up in udev… udev is part of systemd and something went wrong. Even the cups service was disabled in systemd. In this last update.

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OK, this IS fixed in Arch… My desktop is running arch and the issue is gone, and my laptop is running Manajro,
Arch version of systemd is 247.1-1, Manjaro is 246.6-1 udev is part of systemd…

Once, Manjaro updates to the newer version, issue should be fixed.

3 Likes
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Thanks for checking in to this for us!

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I’m running cinnamon on testing branch and haven’t had any of the issues people have been posting about. Either I’m lucky or the updates are in the testing branch already

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Thanks @DeLinuxCo for your help!
Guess we’ll have to wait for the new systemd to trickle down into the stable repos.

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I can’t believe no one has tried, or did the obvious: take the keyboard out of the cinnamon!

:grin:

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The same is happening to me, with the additional of, at certain time, the SUPER+ shortcuts stop working (as in SUPER+E to open Nemo, for instance)

UPDATE

Ive changed my repositories to the “test”, updated everything and started working again (sudo pacman -Syyuu)

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I installed a large update today, and the problem appears to be fixed now.

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im on xfce and 3 months later im still having the same problem with all updates installed. none of the multimedia keys work and also the volume encoder. im running pulseaudio and jack on top. i pipe pulseaudio into jack via the below script.

also the pulseeffects dont work so i suspect a pulseaudio problem which of course is a wild guess because i dont understand the mechanism. the volume encoder affects the levels in volume control of pulseaudio for sure.

is there a summary of how the multimedia keys work? what exactly do i need to reinstall for this to be fixed?

pulseaudio -k
killall jackd
sleep 1

jackd --autoconnect a -R -d alsa hw:0 -p 128 -n 2 &
sleep 1

pulseaudio --start
pactl load-module module-jack-sink channels=2
pactl load-module module-jack-source
pacmd set-default-sink jack_out

a2jmidid -e &

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