Ubuntu – Why do keyboard shortcuts stop working in Ubuntu 18.04 with Gnome

18.04gnomekeyboardshortcut-keys

I just updated from Ubuntu 16.04 Unity to Ubuntu 18.04 with GNOME. The update went well except for one thing: some times IntelliJ Ultimate keyboard shortcuts simply stop working. They work for some time and then they stop. I have only 2 GNOME extensions enabled: Ubuntu Dock and User Themes.

What can be the cause? How can I troubleshoot this?

If I restart IntelliJ they start working again, but eventually stop working.

All the keyboard shortcuts are affected:

  • Ctrl+Shift+A (to open settings in IntelliJ)
  • Shift+Alt+Left/Right to move back and forward in the code.
  • All shortcut keys.
  • Arrow keys don't even work to move up and down in the code.

Best Answer

I don't really have great insights into this problem, but rather than leaving it without any answers, I'll share what I have. I think the comments on the question are great. Given that the problem happens after some time elapses running IntelliJ, I would suspect that some other application starts running and grabs those shortcut keys. It might even be some sort of plug-in in IntelliJ.

You might investigate any recently started processes when you first notice the problem start happening, via

ps e -o pid,start_time,command --sort start_time

If it is a transient process, that could be harder.

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