Ubuntu – media keys no longer work in Ubuntu 17.10

17.10keyboardmedia-buttonsshortcut-keysunity

Installed a bunch of updates to my Ubuntu 17.10 desktop tonight, and rebooted. Now the media keys at the top of my DELL USB keyboard no longer work.

When I run sudo showkey it looks like the volume knob, play, stop, calculator, etc…, are still sending key down and key up events. But those don't seem to do anything anymore, as if Ubuntu is ignoring all the extra keys. Anyone have ideas?

sudo showkey
...
keycode 140 press # calculator
keycode 140 release
keycode 113 press # mute
keycode 113 release
keycode 166 press # stop
keycode 166 release
keycode 114 press # volume down
keycode 114 release
keycode 115 press # volume up
keycode 115 release

sudo lsusb
...
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 413c:2010 Dell Computer Corp. Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 413c:1003 Dell Computer Corp. Keyboard Hub

Best Answer

I had a similar problem with the media keys (mute, play, pause) after installing the Unity interface on a clean 17.10 installation. The media keys worked fine in the login screen and on the Gnome interface desktop.

The post How to find *why* I can't bind some keyboard shortcut (or which app took it)? gave me an insight for a workaround. It seems to be some issue with compiz.

I installed Compiz Config Settings Manager

sudo apt install compizconfig-settings-manager
ccsm

and disabled the plugin Commands. After that the media keys seem to be working fine.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Many USB Multimedia Keyboard issues in Ubuntu 13.10

Sounds like an USB problem to me. Here is what you might try : build you own kernel with a modified hid.h value (usb2.0 driver), to allow the USB 2.0 to be more permissive. I used to do that until kernel 3.11 was out for my Perixx gaming mouse.

Building a new kernel with modifier hid.h value :

1) Open a terminal (ctrl-alt-T)

2) Launch the command :

sudo apt-get install fakeroot kernel-wedge build-essential makedumpfile kernel-package libncurses5 libncurses5-dev

It installs the requiered packages for the kernel building. You can apt-get remove <packages> afterwards to uninstall them if you wish.

3) Enter the following commands to create a directory for the kernel sources :

mkdir ~/source
cd ~/source
apt-get source linux-image-$(uname -r)

4) Type :

cd linux

Press Tab to auto-fill the name, then press Enter.

5) Launch :

gedit include/linux/hid.h

Find (Ctrl + F) the line #define HID_MAX_USAGES and change it's value to '64000'.

6) Launch :

cp -vi /boot/config-`uname -r` .config

To copy the configuration file of your current system.

7) (Optionnal) To speed up the building process, you can adjust the concurrency level. Launch :

export CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=#

Replace # by the number of your CPU's cores + 1 (Dual-core will be "3", Quad-core "5", …)

8) Launch :

make-kpkg clean

To prepare the directory needed by the building process.

9) Launch :

fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-sk kernel-image kernel-headers

This will start the kernel building process. It can take a while (between 1h and 8h following your hardware). If the process is interrupted for some reason, you should launch the command rm ~/source and start over from step 3. The kernel binaries .deb will be placed in ~/source.

To install the new kernel :

1) Open nautilus (file explorer) and go to /lib/modules.

2) Open a Terminal and launch :

cd ~/source

3) Type the following commands and press **Tab to auto-fill the version of kernel, named here (KERNEL_VERSION) :**

sudo dpkg -i linux-image-
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-

Both commands (once filled by Tab) must end by .deb

4) Launch :

sudo update-initramfs -c -k KERNEL_NAME

You have to replace KERNEL_NAME by the name used by the directory containing the modifier kernel (should end with "-sk" in nautilus).

5) Launch :

sudo update-grub

(and also sudo update-burg if you use BURG).

6) Restart the computer.

You now run a custom kernel ! Congrats'

If that doesn't work, the problem is NOT caused by HID (usb2.0 driver) and I have no idea how to help you :)

Ubuntu – Media keys don’t work

The media keys do work (with rhythmbox). They do not work with banshee or VLC because there's a bug with banshee 2.6.2 and VLC 2.2.2 in Ubuntu 16.04.

A work around for VLC is to set a global hotkey.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Many USB Multimedia Keyboard issues in Ubuntu 13.10

Ubuntu – Media keys don’t work

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