Bug: device detection works poorly

[prescientmoon]

Requirements

• I've searched platform-specific issues, issues and discussions to see if this has been reported before.

Describe the bug

When I disconnect my external keyboard and reconnect it immediately (as in, less than one second later), the kanata service seems to stop working.

While this might seem contrived, I have a bad cable which keeps disconnecting and reconnecting when it moves. Having to restart the kanata systemd service to fix the issue is a bit annoying.

Relevant kanata config

I don't think this is very relevant, but:

    keyboards.keychronK6 = {
      devices = [ "/dev/input/by-id/usb-Keychron_Keychron_K6-event-kbd" ];
    };

(defcfg
  linux-dev /dev/input/by-id/usb-Keychron_Keychron_K6-event-kbd
  linux-continue-if-no-devs-found yes)

To Reproduce

1. Connect external keyboard
2. Pull the cable out and push it in super quickly

Expected behavior

Kanata should detect the device is still there.

Kanata version

1.4.0

Debug logs

2024-05-01T20:48:24.331828786+02:00 [INFO] kanata v1.4.0 starting
2024-05-01T20:48:24.33241852+02:00 [INFO] process unmapped keys: false
2024-05-01T20:48:24.332511135+02:00 [INFO] NOTE: kanata was compiled to never allow cmd
2024-05-01T20:48:24.332520932+02:00 [DEBUG] (1) kanata_parser::cfg::alloc: freeing allocations of length 0
2024-05-01T20:48:24.334953638+02:00 [INFO] config parsed
2024-05-01T20:48:24.335666745+02:00 [INFO] Created device "/dev/input/event10"
2024-05-01T20:48:24.335695751+02:00 [INFO] Created symlink "/run/keychronK6" -> "/dev/input/event10"
2024-05-01T20:48:24.335792071+02:00 [INFO] Sleeping for 2s. Please release all keys and don't press additional ones.
2024-05-01T20:48:26.33611098+02:00 [INFO] entering the processing loop
2024-05-01T20:48:26.336245193+02:00 [INFO] entering the event loop
2024-05-01T20:48:26.336335927+02:00 [INFO] registering /dev/input/by-id/usb-Keychron_Keychron_K6-event-kbd: "Keychron Keychron K6"
2024-05-01T20:48:26.336354301+02:00 [INFO] Init: catching only releases and sending immediately
2024-05-01T20:48:26.921589974+02:00 [INFO] Starting kanata proper
2024-05-01T20:48:27.57772853+02:00 [WARN] removing kbd device: /dev/input/by-id/usb-Keychron_Keychron_K6-event-kbd
2024-05-01T20:48:27.958465833+02:00 [INFO] watch found file changes, looking for new devices
2024-05-01T20:48:27.95847888+02:00 [INFO] checking for ["/dev/input/by-id/usb-Keychron_Keychron_K6-event-kbd"]
2024-05-01T20:48:28.060177572+02:00 [INFO] watch found file changes, looking for new devices
2024-05-01T20:48:28.060191286+02:00 [INFO] checking for ["/dev/input/by-id/usb-Keychron_Keychron_K6-event-kbd"]

Operating system

Nixos 23.11

Additional context

No response

[maueroats]

As a first step you should upgrade to the most recent version of Kanata.
This area improved a lot in 1.5 iirc.
Come back and confirm.
Including the log from kanata --debug would make a lot of sense.

[jtroo]

Maybe you need to adjust this value:

    /// Milliseconds to wait before attempting to register a newly connected
    /// device. The default is 200.
    ///
    /// You may wish to increase this if you have a device that is failing
    /// to register - the device may be taking too long to become ready.
    #[cfg(target_os = "linux")]
    #[arg(short, long, verbatim_doc_comment)]
    wait_device_ms: Option<u64>,

Could try making it larger, or making it smaller.

[jtroo]

Closing as stale