Sometimes, I don't know why, when I use some shortcuts with meta I get a broken environment because the meta key is virtually pressed. That is, I'm going to write and, if I press the "L" key, I lock the session, if I press the arrow key to move the cursor, I move all window to that side, if I press "E", I open a new instance of dolphin...

Besides, the meta key itself doesn't work when I press it.

I suffer it also when I open some applications, for example, Lyx.

It is not a hardware error, maybe some incompatibility with other applications shortcuts?

It's very annoying. When I suffer this problem, sometimes it works well again, but others I have to restart the laptop.

Of course the "Meta" key alone will not produce anything, it is only meant to be use in combination.

Could you please specify your exact Plasma version and distribution?

The KDE plasma version is 5.17.2
The distro is KDE neon 5.17

Both installed from zero, two weeks ago.

My meta key uses to launch my application dashboard, but the problem is that sometimes it is virtually pressed all the time and I have to finish session and restart it.

Virtually pressed? Are you sure it is not some dust in your keyboard?
Anyway, you can modify the keyboard details in the system settings, please have a look there

It is not the dust. I just found that this happens when I press Ctrl+Fn+Meta, it is like an enable/disable shortcut to activate the "meta key pressed". I tried to assign this combo to a function in the Kwin shortcut settings to check which function has assigned it. No one has it, or al least the settings doesn't notify it. Another clue about this combination is that the Kwin settings don't allow me to assign it to a new function, when I lift the fingers after press it simply isn't saved it.

Do you have any idea about this problem? Ctrl and Meta keys don't have a secondary Fn function assigned.

I have a Fn key as well, but there is no way I could reproduce this on my system, could it be something specific to your keyboard? What kind of keyboard is this? Mine is a generic keyboard on a Lenovo laptop.

I don't think this has anything to do with KWin, as keyboard handling is done by the underlying system, please check the various options in System Settings -> Hardware -> Keyboard where the make of the keyboard can be chosen on top, as well as in the Advanced Tab of that dialog for specific key handling. Depending on the make of a keyboard key handling can vary a lot.

I believe I'm having the same issue.
When I create a custom shortcut, and I send "H:E:L:L:O", the "H", "E" and "O" are sent, but the system logs me out as if I pressed meta+L to lock screen.

Why do you use a combination which is already in use in the Global shortcuts? Don't, or at least disable the corresponding Global shortcut

Hi!

There are a lot of options with Fn-Keys, like Fn-Lock for switching the function-key row to multimedia keys and stuff like this. On most systems, the Fn key isn't even recognized by the operating system as it is a hardware-internal switch that manipulates the scancodes (key presses, releases,…) itself. As an example: if you press Fn+PgUp to increase brightness, the os just receives the brightness-keypress and release as if there were a seperate key for it.

Some systems (afair I know only Lenovo) use the XF86_WakeUp-Key on Fn.

To help debbugging this you should provide details about your computer and specially the keyboard used.

Code: Select all

grep -A4 -B7 120013 /proc/bus/input/devices

will list all input devices that are declared to be a keyboard. If yours isn't visible, you could search the file for 'kbd' in 'Handlers' but this will also show any 'keyboard' with only one key like the power button.

There are also tools to watch/log scancodes, keycode-events (gui or terminal), … As a beginning in an X environment you can use `xev` (wev on wayland) which delivers filtered and mapped events from the Xservers point of view or switch to a virtual console and use `showkey`.