After upgrading to Ubuntu 14.04, my shortcuts keys and media keys no longer work

Question

I just upgraded from 13.10 to 14.04 (GNOME interface) and none of the shortcut key combinations or Fn+F(#) controls seem to be working any more (not even the default ones, like Ctrl+Alt+T for terminal). Additionally, I have an HP wireless keyboard with extra media control and volume toggle buttons. These no longer function either. Going to Settings->Keyboard->Shortcuts and attempting manual changes doesn't work.

What changed in 14.04 to cause this? I never had any problems at all with Saucy! I didn't change my keyboard configuration or anything like that, and when I tested the keys with showkey they all worked, so something got lost with the keyboard mapping when the upgrade happened.

Solution 1

Killing unity-settings-daemon and running gnome-settings-daemon worked for me , or running:

gnome-settings-daemon --replace

But it's not a persistent solution. It affects all keyboard shortcuts set via
SystemSettings...→Keyboard→Shortcuts. Running Ubuntu 14.04.

(also maybe interesting: some shortcuts that were set before updating from 13.04 to 14.04 still worked, but as soon as I reassign them in the System Settings, they stop working with unity-settings-daemon)

Solution 2

Here is the bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-control-center/+bug/1302885 & here you go, this should do the trick...

The problem is that an incorrect string is set in dconf key: (Example)

Original (working) value:

gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up
'XF86AudioRaiseVolume'

After running "unity-control-center keyboard", and setting the shortcut for volume-up key:

gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up
'AudioRaiseVolume'

The new value misses the "XF86" part of the string, and does not work.

You can get the key working again by resetting the value, with:

gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up

to reset key using GUI, you can install dconf-tools:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Solution 3

I've tried a number of proposed solutions (for Ubuntu 14.04), however this worked for me. From a terminal type (or copy paste.. Note you need to use Ctrl+Shift+V to paste in to a terminal);

gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up
gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-down
gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-mute

Solution 4

As stated by @robin-hood, it looks like a known bug on Launchpad.

According to the thread there, the current simple fix is to...

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T)

2. Type the following two commands to reset the volume keys on your keyboard...

   gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up
   gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-down
   

It worked for me, hope it works for you too.

Solution 5

I had the same problem, updatet from Ubuntu Gnome 13.10 to 14.04. Something happened at this process, so gnome3 didn't work properly. I could control my background light, but without OSD, volume buttons, other fn-keys didn't work and Ctrl+Alt+T didn't open the terminal. So I decided to upgrade gnome-shell to 3.12, I realised, that my main gnome3 ppa's were disabled (which is normal while upgrading Ubuntu) so you could also try enabling those by typing:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3

afterwards, to update gnome3 type:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you want to try gnome 3.12 add the main repository but afterwards also add the staging by typing

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3-staging

and type:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

afterwards.

Reboot and everything should work!

good luck!

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Comments

[pianoplunkster]

Ah, that might be it. Hm. I'm getting this message when I try running gnome-settings-daemon --debug: ** (gnome-settings-daemon:4161): WARNING **: Name taken or bus went away - shutting down ** (gnome-settings-daemon:4161): DEBUG: Shutting down ** (gnome-settings-daemon:4161): DEBUG: SettingsDaemon finished

[Chrisky]

This worked well for me after SystemSettings...→Keyboard→Shortcuts remapping broke the Media keys functionality. The 3 commands to restore Audio control were: gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-up & gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-down & gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys volume-mute .

[Chrisky]

"volume-mute" can be used, too

[Scaine]

Worked here too. I just used Dconf, browsed to Org/Gnome/Settings-Daemon/Plugins, then hit the "reset" button on all the media entries. Thanks for this.

[pvc]

This can lead to the loss of data. Be sure to save all your data and close all programs before doing it.

[Tyler Collier]

@pvc, can you explain which data might be lost?

[pvc]

@TylerCollier Everything that is not saved. In my case whole X server restarted few seconds after running that command.