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Pointy
Asked: 2012-12-24 10:30:00 +0800 CST

Updated system and Firefox now won't let me type tildes or backquotes

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% uname -a
Linux phoebe 3.2.0-33-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 18 16:29:15 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'm running 12.04 on the machine I'm typing this on, and I've been running it for quite some time. I just did a dist-upgrade, and it included some update for Firefox (to 17.0.1 now). After restarting the browser, I noted with some surprise that I can't type back-quotes or tildes. They worked just a few minutes ago before the update, but not now.

I use a Deck keyboad, and I have the back-quote/tilde key remapped. I've had the keyboard for many years now and the remapping has always worked:

% xmodmap -pk | egrep tilde
133         0x0060 (grave)  0x007e (asciitilde)     0x0060 (grave)  0x007e (asciitilde)

I can type those characters into xterm windows, into Chrome, gvim, gedit, etc. What in the world is going on with Firefox? I can't find any relevant configuration options, and I certainly haven't been tinkering with them. I've tried restarting it a couple times too.

I'll try running a new clean profile and see if that makes a difference; I do have some add-ons but nothing new and nothing particularly crazy. edit Nope, can't type the characters in a plain-jane profile either.

edit — reinstalled Firefox, same thing.

edit again — I've also found that VirtualBox seems to ignore the xmodmap remapping. I've basically got the grave/tilde key swapped with another key that's remapped to "Alt". In VirtualBox now (I don't think it was always this way, but I'm not 100% sure), I can type back-quote or tilde with the key that's swapped to "Alt". However, that does not work in Firefox — neither key works as the grave/tilde key, though I've just verified that the remapped "Alt" key in Firefox does work (as "Alt")!!

edit yet again — upgraded to 12.10, same problem. Something changed somewhere, as I am 100% positive that that key was working today and over the past many months. (Why? How do you quote code snippets inline in Markdown? I'm on Stackoverflow a lot and that's how I noticed it was broken.)

12.04

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    My old (and I mean old) xmodmap remapping file included these two key lines:

    keycode 49 = Alt_L
keycode 133 = grave asciitilde

    Those two lines accomplished the remapping only partially. What I had failed to do was this:

    add mod1 = Alt_L
remove mod4 = Super_L

    The key that I wanted to be the accent/tilde key had been a modifier key, for "mod4", with the keysym "Super_L". For some reason, that didn't start causing a problem until yesterday. Here I am in Firefox typing back-quotes just like before!!

    So the bottom line is this: if you remap key symbols, make sure to check the modifier map. You can check the initial state of keys by starting a fresh X session and then typing:

    xmodmap -pk

    Then, view the initial modifier map with:

    xmodmap

    If you change keysyms for keycodes, make sure you add/remove them from the modifier map as necessary.

    edit — oh also you can use xev to figure out what the keycode/keysym for a particular key is. Just run it from a terminal window; it's kind-of a mess but just mouse over its little window and press the key a couple times. Use ^C (control-C) in the terminal window to stop it, or I guess the "Close" thingy on the window.

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