Keyboard Media Keys

Wimukthi · 2017-01-12 10:58:03

Hello. I have a small issue that has suddenly occurred. My Media keys, that is the volume, stop/play, brightness etc. which are on the function keys do not work anymore. F1 F2 etc work. That is the Function element works. Its the volume and brightness and things like that which have stopped working all of a sudden. Also if I press F1 on a terminal it print a capital A and so on upto F5 which prints E. After that F6 to F12 prints the ~ sign. Its not a very serious issue but it was working fine till now and its annoying when i have to change the volume. Thanks in advance

Wimukthi · 2017-01-12 15:24:41

Can someone help? I have been messing about but still couldnt fix it.

ewaller · 2017-01-12 15:40:59

First, Do not bump

I realize that the configuration is obvious to you, but consider for a moment that all we know is what you have told us. Is is a desktop? A laptop?
What are the make and model? Some models or manufacturers have kernel modules that are specific to those machines ( on my machine the modules are wmi and hp_wmi ) that bring life to those functions.
It might be that the kernel you are running does not match the kernel that is installed and the kernel cannot find its modules. Check the versions reported by uname -a and by pacman -Q linux
You might tell us which desktop environment you are using? Or are you? (Console, KDE, Gnome, i3, OpenBox, ....)
Are you using Xorg or Wayland.

Edit: Okay, to your credit -- this is in the Laptops sub-forum. I missed that. *facepalm*

Last edited by ewaller (2017-01-12 16:47:36)

Wimukthi · 2017-01-13 12:35:06

I am sorry, should have been more clear. Its a laptop, and it was working perfectly until two days ago. So dont know if its exactly a kernal issue. This issue started recently. Im using xorg with KDE.

Laptop is a HP 15 r208tx : http://support.hp.com/my-en/document/c04529310

Im not completely fluent with linux ofcourse, only been using it for around two years. So I dont really know how to give you proper details. However uname -a gives the following output:

Linux ClockWorkDragon 4.7.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Sep 15 15:24:29 CEST 2016 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Sorry for bumping. Thanks in advance.

ewaller · 2017-01-13 15:47:20

Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Does the kernel version reported by uname -a match that reported by pacman -Q linux?
What are the output of lsmod | grep msi ?
Does the tool xev see these functions?

Wimukthi · 2017-01-14 03:55:15

kernal versions are the same. 4.7.4-1

lsmod | grep msi is one command yes? It doesnt give any output.

and I dont have xev.

A small note, dont know whether its exactly important, I use a mouse and an external keyboard, that is a plugged in one. However that didnt really affect the laptop keyboard. Even with it plugged in the media keys used to work perfectly. In fact Iused them to control volume all the time.

ewaller · 2017-01-14 16:19:25

Wimukthi wrote:

lsmod | grep msi is one command yes? It doesnt give any output.

Yes. That means there are no kernel modules loaded whose name contains the string msi

and I dont have xev.

ewaller@turing ~ 1001 %pacman -Qo xev
/usr/bin/xev is owned by xorg-xev 1.2.2-1
ewaller@turing ~ 1002 %

It is a good tool to diagnose this.

verge-36 · 2017-01-16 08:52:35

The same thing has been happening with my kde installation, but other DEs were running fine. I run

killall plasmashell && kstart plasmashell

when plasma starts acting up. It might be the same for you.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-01-12 10:58:03

Keyboard Media Keys

#2 2017-01-12 15:24:41

Re: Keyboard Media Keys

#3 2017-01-12 15:40:59

Re: Keyboard Media Keys

#4 2017-01-13 12:35:06

Re: Keyboard Media Keys

#5 2017-01-13 15:47:20

Re: Keyboard Media Keys

#6 2017-01-14 03:55:15

Re: Keyboard Media Keys

#7 2017-01-14 16:19:25

Re: Keyboard Media Keys

#8 2017-01-16 08:52:35

Re: Keyboard Media Keys

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