Distribution
22.3
Package version
6.6.7
Graphics hardware in use
No response
Frequency
Always
Bug description
Cinnamon loses keyboard input routing when IBus restarts mid‑session. This can be triggered reliably by deleting the IBus cache directory while Cinnamon is running. Mouse input continues working, and the UI remains responsive, but keyboard input to applications stops until the compositor is restarted.
Steps to reproduce
Steps to Reproduce (100% reproducible)
Start a Cinnamon session (Linux Mint Cinnamon).
Open a terminal.
Delete the IBus cache while Cinnamon is running:
Code - rm -rf ~/.cache/ibus
Attempt to type in the terminal.
Observed Behavior
Terminal immediately stops accepting keyboard input.
Mouse input continues working normally.
Cinnamon UI remains responsive (menus, panel, windows all work).
No crash, no freeze — only keyboard routing is lost.
Restarting Cinnamon (Alt+F2 → r) restores keyboard input instantly.
Any keystrokes typed while input was dead appear in the terminal after the compositor restarts, indicating they were buffered but not routed.
Expected behavior
Expected Behavior
Cinnamon should gracefully handle an IBus restart without losing keyboard focus or input routing.
Additional information
This issue occurs even on a clean session with no third‑party tools running. It does not depend on Stacer or any cache‑cleaning utility. It does not depend on hardware. Deleting other caches (fontconfig, Cinnamon cache, thumbnails, mesa shader cache, package caches, etc.) does not trigger the issue.
Only the IBus cache deletion (which forces an IBus restart) causes Cinnamon to lose its input focus surface. The fact that buffered keystrokes appear after restarting Cinnamon strongly suggests a compositor‑level input‑routing failure.
This issue was originally discovered because I use Stacer to clean system caches. To rule out Stacer as a cause, I manually deleted each cache directory one at a time in a clean Cinnamon session.
After testing every cache individually (Cinnamon cache, fontconfig, thumbnails, mesa shader cache, package caches, mintinstall, etc.), only deleting the IBus cache (~/.cache/ibus) reproduced the keyboard‑input failure.
This confirms the issue is not caused by Stacer itself, but by Cinnamon’s handling of an IBus restart triggered by the cache deletion.
I have closed the previous issue I opened related to this because it was pointing to the wrong cache directory being the culprit.
Distribution
22.3
Package version
6.6.7
Graphics hardware in use
No response
Frequency
Always
Bug description
Cinnamon loses keyboard input routing when IBus restarts mid‑session. This can be triggered reliably by deleting the IBus cache directory while Cinnamon is running. Mouse input continues working, and the UI remains responsive, but keyboard input to applications stops until the compositor is restarted.
Steps to reproduce
Steps to Reproduce (100% reproducible)
Start a Cinnamon session (Linux Mint Cinnamon).
Open a terminal.
Delete the IBus cache while Cinnamon is running:
Code - rm -rf ~/.cache/ibus
Attempt to type in the terminal.
Observed Behavior
Terminal immediately stops accepting keyboard input.
Mouse input continues working normally.
Cinnamon UI remains responsive (menus, panel, windows all work).
No crash, no freeze — only keyboard routing is lost.
Restarting Cinnamon (Alt+F2 → r) restores keyboard input instantly.
Any keystrokes typed while input was dead appear in the terminal after the compositor restarts, indicating they were buffered but not routed.
Expected behavior
Expected Behavior
Cinnamon should gracefully handle an IBus restart without losing keyboard focus or input routing.
Additional information
This issue occurs even on a clean session with no third‑party tools running. It does not depend on Stacer or any cache‑cleaning utility. It does not depend on hardware. Deleting other caches (fontconfig, Cinnamon cache, thumbnails, mesa shader cache, package caches, etc.) does not trigger the issue.
Only the IBus cache deletion (which forces an IBus restart) causes Cinnamon to lose its input focus surface. The fact that buffered keystrokes appear after restarting Cinnamon strongly suggests a compositor‑level input‑routing failure.
This issue was originally discovered because I use Stacer to clean system caches. To rule out Stacer as a cause, I manually deleted each cache directory one at a time in a clean Cinnamon session.
After testing every cache individually (Cinnamon cache, fontconfig, thumbnails, mesa shader cache, package caches, mintinstall, etc.), only deleting the IBus cache (~/.cache/ibus) reproduced the keyboard‑input failure.
This confirms the issue is not caused by Stacer itself, but by Cinnamon’s handling of an IBus restart triggered by the cache deletion.
I have closed the previous issue I opened related to this because it was pointing to the wrong cache directory being the culprit.