Arch Linux

jones

Member

Registered: 2013-03-14

Posts: 247

[SOLVED] Access to my keyboard with VIA does not work

I just got the Keychron Q6 keyboard.
As VIA can only be used on Chromium-based browsers (official guide on keychron website), I immediately started Chromium.
It does not connect.
The error message on https://usevia.app/errors is:

17:41:40.515
Failed to open the device.
Device: Keychron Keychron Q6
Vid: 0x3434
Pid: 0x0163
17:41:40.579
Received invalid protocol version from device
Device: Keychron Keychron Q6
Vid: 0x3434
Pid: 0x0163

Now on reddit a more experienced user says:

Are you using linux? The via webpage or your broswer technically doesn't have the necessary rights to access the relevant hidraw device. Check in chrome device logs (chrome://device-log) the name, there should be an access denied error. One simple fix is using sudo chmod to simply give everyone read and write access.

And the user is correct:

[17:41:40] Failed to open '/dev/hidraw3': FILE_ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED

[17:41:40][ Access denied opening device read-write, trying read-only.

However the bit about chmod, I rather not try that out to find some working setting.

Is there a more restrictive or secure way to enable Chromium (or VIA, rather) to access the keyboard and use the website on Linux?

Note: on windows https://usevia.app/ worked instantly, but I would like to stay on Linux.

Last edited by jones (2023-05-11 17:06:02)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,811

Re: [SOLVED] Access to my keyboard with VIA does not work

That will be the easiest and simplest way to do it. And if you do it now it will revert and be "safe" again on reboot. Or you can revert the perms once you're done.

jones

Member

Registered: 2013-03-14

Posts: 247

Re: [SOLVED] Access to my keyboard with VIA does not work

Thank you for the reply, Videl.

Happy to try and do it the easy way, but I do understand what exactly meant with "sudo chmod to simply give everyone read and write access". Does it relate to Chromium, should I run some command in relation to it?

The wiki page is too abstract for me, I am not able to transfer the information and apply it.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,811

Re: [SOLVED] Access to my keyboard with VIA does not work

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/hidraw3

see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/File_p … ermissions

jones

Member

Registered: 2013-03-14

Posts: 247

Re: [SOLVED] Access to my keyboard with VIA does not work

Thank you.

How can I then reset the permissions to the folder /dev/hidraw3? Right now it is

$ ls -l /dev/hidraw3
crw------- 1 root root 240, 3 11. Mai 16:48 /dev/hidraw3

So I would have to
1. run

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/hidraw3

, then
2. use the VIA website https://usevia.app
3. run

sudo chmod 600 /dev/hidraw3

Is that right?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,811

Re: [SOLVED] Access to my keyboard with VIA does not work

pretty much.

jones

Member

Registered: 2013-03-14

Posts: 247

Re: [SOLVED] Access to my keyboard with VIA does not work

Worked like a charm.

And after using my command to "reset" the permissions for /dev/hidraw3, it does not work anymore. Seems like this worked out perfectly. Thank you, V1del

yxz

Member

Registered: 2023-11-07

Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] Access to my keyboard with VIA does not work

This is a bit late, but in the qmk repo, (qmk/qmk_firmware), you can find a udev rule at qmk_firmware/util/udev/50-qmk.rules which you can move to /etc/udev/rules.d to allow user access to the keyboards.