Can't switch keyboard layout

[s3fs]

Got this issue out of nowhere. Something prevents me from changing the keyboard layout.

Just when I log in everything works fine, I can use both the Alt+Shift combo and the graphical interface to change the layout. Then, something seemingly triggers the system and I'm unable to do so anymore. All of the menus in the keyboard settings tab (switch layout, compose key) are not working either. Not sure what causes this bug as everything worked fine up to today. Any advice on how to solve this would be greatly appreciated.

I'm running elementary OS 5.1.7 Hera.

[s3fs]

Looks like the bug takes place shortly after using any text field (like Code).

[jeremypw]

There are some issues using <Alt><Shift> to switch layouts - you could try using one of the alternatives offered in Settings. I use both shift keys together as it less likely to clash with other shortcuts. If you are using input methods then check that the shortcut to change input methods is set to something different. Bugs in Hera are no longer being fixed so think about upgrading to Odin or Jólnir.

[s3fs]

@jeremypw Okay. I did upgrade to 6.1 but the problem is still there. Besides that, now there are others: for example, the settings menu crashes on trying to open some submenus like Universal Access. I can't open the browser (brave). Just the ones I've encountered so far. Any solutions?

It's probably worth noting that I followed this tutorial for upgrading. So, I did not reinstall the OS but rather updated the sources used for apt update && apt upgrade commands. I'm not yet willing to do a full reinstall because the previous install was quite a hassle.

[jeremypw]

We do recommend a clean install at the moment - it is difficult to know whether the crashes you experience is due to some problem with the upgrade path you used. You could try sudo apt dist-upgrade. If not, better revert your repositories to Hera I guess. Anything unusual about your keyboard? e.g. special functions/software or have you installed any software not in the AppCenter?

[jeremypw]

The time taken to do a basic clean install is not very long but re-establishing your working environment can time I know.

If you have the disc space you can try creating a new partition to hold the new install and multiboot with your old system to see whether Odin is an improvement for you. Take care to back everything up first though on external storage.

[s3fs]

@jeremypw nothing unusual that I know of, as I said, it appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

Fyi: I can change the keyboard layout in non-GUI ttys without any problems. Also, in GUI, spamming the change layout combo while typing allows for some characters of the desired layout to appear.

I've got a multitude of other issues now though, the system locale is stuck and changing it through settings menu doesn't do anything. Upon inspection, some of the files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d still point to bionic releases so I'll try and change that tomorrow.