protonscr

The “i” key doesn’t work within Steam

steamclosed Distro Family: GentooWeb Component
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#5656 · opened 2018-08-23 by ghost · updated 2019-11-15 · 5 comments · github
?ghost 2018-08-23 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version: Aug 8 2018 at 21:32:49
  • Distribution: Gentoo x86_64
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
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Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

The i key should work, but it does not.

For example, when I write to a friend in Steam chat, i and the next key, that I type after it, are “gulped”. They take no space on the screen, so “continuation” becomes “contuatn”.

The similar thing happens even when I run a game. For example, in The Long Dark the inventory was always bound to the i key, and this key stopped working after a Steam update, that came a couple of weeks ago. I cannot reassign the inventory to i – the game engine behaves like it doesn’t see it. I can reassign it to o, – however, if I press o immediately after i, it won’t work. Left4Dead2 has the same issues.

This isn’t a problem with my keyboard, as I type this message without any troubles (Steam is running).

I’ve restarted and reinstalled Steam – it didn’t help.

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Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Run Steam
  2. Try to chat to a friend or run a game
  3. See that the i key isn’t working, and additionally gulps whatever key you press next.
Kkisak-valve maintainer 2018-08-23 github

Hello @deterenkelt, in a quick test my gentoo test box is not affected. What model keyboard do you have?

?ghost 2018-08-23 github

It’s a Samsung KB-0325. A generic keyboard with pc-104 layout.

?ghost 2018-08-23 github

I’ve just tried Genius LuxeMate i202 (this one is USB, while Samsung is PS/2) – the issue is still there.

?ghost 2018-08-26 github

I’ve just noticed that the same gulping happens within Vivaldi browser, which is based on chromium.

?ghost 2019-11-15 github

I figured, that the troublemaker was this line in the ~/.XCompose file:

<i> <p> : "·" U00B7

A long time ago I attempted to set it up. I’ve dropped the idea, but the file remained in my $HOME. Due to GTK_IM_MODIFIER and QT_IM_MODIFIER being set to scim, the issue didn’t affect any other program except those that are based on Google’s v8.

I’ve discovered the root of the problem, when I removed scim from my system, and immediately got the same bug with the i key in urxvt. Which was strange, so I disabled things one by one, and when I couldn’t figure out even then, I’ve run xev to see what happens, when I press the i key.

And there was something: each time on the KeyPress event for i and for the next key pressed after, XFilterEvent value returned true. A search on XFilterEvent has lead me to XCompose.

Nothing extracted yet.