ElementaryOS 8 Secure Session not cycling through all set keyboard layouts & not updating the keyboard layout tray icon when using keyboard shortcut

[sees7ern]

What Happened?

I have set up three keyboard layouts on my Elementary OS 8 system, having applied all the most recent updates:

• "gb" [English (UK)]
• "de" [German]
• "zh" [Chinese (Intelligent Pinyin)]

1. When cycling through these keyboard layouts via my keyboard shortcut "Ctrl + Shift" in a Secure Session, the actual keyboard layout changes only between "gb" and "de". I can write as if I would have a British or German keyboard, respectively. However, it never cycles into "zh", despite it being an active input method. I can only activate the latter keyboard layout via the GUI.

2. Adding to that, the keyboard layout tray icon (on the top right corner of the OS) never changes from "gb" to "de" when cycling into the latter keyboard layout using aforementioned keyboard shortcut. I can type as if I have a German keyboard in front of me, but the tray icon stays fixed at "gb". The tray icon only updates correctly to "de" or "zh" when I use the GUI.

Thank you already for any assistance in this regard!

Steps to Reproduce

See description above

Expected Behavior

See description above

OS Version

8.x (Circe)

Session Type

Secure Session (Wayland)

Software Version

Latest release (I have run all updates)

Log Output

Hardware Info

Every Starlabs laptop I have.

[PouyaPouryaie]

I'm experiencing the same issue. When I use the shortcut to switch language layouts, the language changes, but the keyboard layout tray icon does not.

[Oowoosh0]

As a quick workaround you can set a shortcut to switch keyboards by going to "System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Keyboard Layouts" and add a shortcut to switch keyboard layouts there. Just use a different shortcut than those predefined in the "Keyboard > Layout" section, as those would overwrite your choice. This should fix the issue where the "zh" keyboard is never selected and also should lead to the keyboard tray icon being updated immediately as you switch layouts.

[Oowoosh0]

Looked some more into it and this seems to be a mutter issue. It happens in gnome too.
But it should already be fixed upstream.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/3883

[alexbinarnov]

found a solution, write in terminal:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-input-source "['Shift_L']"

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-input-source-backward "['Alt_L']"

its works for me

[jeremypw]

I notice that the switchboard keyboard plug "Layout" page offers a choice of shortcut to switch layout (default Alt + Shift) but not an option to switch backwards. However, on the "Shortcuts/ Keyboard Layouts" page there is an option to switch both ways but both are by default Disabled. This seems confusing. Does setting the shortcut on the "Shortcuts/ Keyboard Layouts" page also fix the problem?

[Oowoosh0]

Yes setting the shortcut on the "Shortcuts/Keyboard Layouts" page or using the terminal commands mentioned above basically do the same thing. They set a keyboard shortcut that is handled by mutter/gala to switch keyboard layouts. But the settings on the "Layouts" page only changes the xkb options setting to switch the keyboard layout. On Wayland this does switch the layout, but mutter does not pick up on that and therefore the gsetting that the wingpanel indicator is connected to does not get updated.

[sees7ern]

As a quick workaround you can set a shortcut to switch keyboards by going to "System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Keyboard Layouts" and add a shortcut to switch keyboard layouts there. Just use a different shortcut than those predefined in the "Keyboard > Layout" section, as those would overwrite your choice. This should fix the issue where the "zh" keyboard is never selected and also should lead to the keyboard tray icon being updated immediately as you switch layouts.

thank you very much for this advice! i confirm that it works for me.

nonetheless, i would not be against being able to address the layout change via the predefined options in the future.