Left Control Key doesn't work on External Keyboard

[khamer]

I'm at a loss, but I'm only seeing this problem with kitty - my other terminals/applications work fine.

Here's the output from kitty --debug-keyboard from hitting left control + l, which doesn't work:

Press xkb_keycode: 0x25 clean_sym: Control_L composed_sym: Control_L mods: none glfw_key: 341 (LEFT CONTROL) xkb_key: 65507 (Control_L)
on_key_input: glfw key: 341 native_code: 0xffe3 action: PRESS mods: 0x0 text: '' state: 0 sent key to child
Press xkb_keycode: 0x2e clean_sym: l composed_sym: l mods: none glfw_key: 76 (L) xkb_key: 108 (l)
on_key_input: glfw key: 76 native_code: 0x6c action: PRESS mods: 0x0 text: '' state: 0 sent key to child
Release xkb_keycode: 0x2e clean_sym: l mods: none glfw_key: 76 (L) xkb_key: 108 (l)
on_key_input: glfw key: 76 native_code: 0x6c action: RELEASE mods: 0x0 text: '' state: 0 ignoring as keyboard mode does not allow release events
Release xkb_keycode: 0x25 clean_sym: Control_L mods: none glfw_key: 341 (LEFT CONTROL) xkb_key: 65507 (Control_L)
on_key_input: glfw key: 341 native_code: 0xffe3 action: RELEASE mods: 0x0 text: '' state: 0 ignoring as keyboard mode does not allow release events

and here's the the same thing for right control + l, which does work:

Press xkb_keycode: 0x25 clean_sym: Control_L composed_sym: Control_L mods: none glfw_key: 341 (LEFT CONTROL) xkb_key: 65507 (Control_L)
on_key_input: glfw key: 341 native_code: 0xffe3 action: PRESS mods: 0x0 text: '' state: 0 sent key to child
Press xkb_keycode: 0x2e clean_sym: l composed_sym: l mods: ctrl glfw_key: 76 (L) xkb_key: 108 (l)
on_key_input: glfw key: 76 native_code: 0x6c action: PRESS mods: 0x2 text: '' state: 0 sent key to child
Release xkb_keycode: 0x25 clean_sym: Control_L mods: ctrl glfw_key: 341 (LEFT CONTROL) xkb_key: 65507 (Control_L)
on_key_input: glfw key: 341 native_code: 0xffe3 action: RELEASE mods: 0x2 text: '' state: 0 ignoring as keyboard mode does not allow release events
Release xkb_keycode: 0x2e clean_sym: l mods: none glfw_key: 76 (L) xkb_key: 108 (l)
on_key_input: glfw key: 76 native_code: 0x6c action: RELEASE mods: 0x0 text: '' state: 0 ignoring as keyboard mode does not allow release events

The meaningful difference I see is the first one shows mods: none and the second doesn't. Why would kitty do this? Any insights?

I'm using Manjaro/i3wm/kitty 0.16.0

[khamer]

better information - the problem is that if I hold control on one keyboard and hit the key on the other, it doesn't work, and I have a split keyboard which probably shows up as two keyboards.

I can confirm above too by trying to use a mix of control of the laptop keyboard and c, d, or l on the external keyboard, or either control on external keyboard with c, d, or l on the laptop keyboard.

Again, this is an issue I only see in kitty - all my other applications don't seem to care what keys I press on what keyboard.

[kovidgoyal]

Well I'm afraid I dont have a lot of interest in debugging issues using multiple keyboards simultaneously, but patches are welcome. The relevant code is in xkb_glfw.c Most likely this has something to do with per keyboard contexts.

[kovidgoyal]

This patch might help: c7c14f1

if not let me know.

[khamer]

@kovidgoyal I built kitty from source from 5f6aa1b (master) and this still doesn't work - shift does (it did before) but alt and control don't.

Also, so I don't seem totally crazy, the reason I even found this bug was because I was using a keyboard similar to this, which shows up to the system as two keyboards. It's definitely a less popular use case. I did try adding more logging to try to figure out what change needs to happen but didn't get too far - I'll try to dig a little more again.

Thanks anyway!

[khamer]

Awesome - I know you closed it already, but just wanted to say thanks - confirmed it's working for me too.