Public bug reported:
Problem:
When using the Cinnamon desktop environment on a Wayland session in Ubuntu, the
Shift+3 key on a standard UK English keyboard incorrectly produces a hash
symbol (#) instead of the expected Great British Pound symbol (£). This issue
affects all applications within the Wayland session, including terminal
emulators and web browsers (e.g., Firefox).
Expected Behavior:
Pressing Shift+3 on a UK keyboard should produce the £ symbol.
Actual Behavior:
Pressing Shift+3 on a UK keyboard produces the # symbol.
Steps to Reproduce:
Log into a Cinnamon desktop session using Wayland.
Open any application that accepts text input (e.g., Terminal, Firefox).
Press Shift+3 on the keyboard.
Observe that # is printed instead of £.
System Details (to be auto-collected by ubuntu-bug, but mention here for
clarity):
Operating System: Ubuntu (Please specify your exact version, e.g., Ubuntu 24.04
LTS "Noble Numbat")
Desktop Environment: Cinnamon (Wayland session)
Kernel Version: (e.g., 6.14.0-15-generic from your dmesg output)
Keyboard Layout: English (UK)
Further details and troubleshooting steps already performed (crucial for
developers):
This issue is ONLY present in the Cinnamon Wayland session. The keyboard
functions PERFECTLY in the Cinnamon (Xorg) session, confirming that the
base system configuration is correct.
Numerous troubleshooting steps have been performed to ensure system-wide
configuration is correct:
Cinnamon Settings Check: The "Layouts" tab in Cinnamon's Keyboard System
Settings is missing/inaccessible when running on Wayland, preventing
graphical configuration.
localectl status output (when in Wayland session):
System Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
VC Keymap: (unset)
X11 Layout: gb
X11 Model: pc105
(Note: The VC Keymap: (unset) persists despite all efforts below, suggesting a
Wayland-specific display/application issue or a bug in how systemd-localed
interacts with the Wayland session's state.)
/etc/vconsole.conf content:
The file is correctly set to the UK layout:
# KEYBOARD CONFIGURATION FILE
# Consult the keyboard(5) manual page.
KEYMAP=gb
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="gb"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTIONS=""
BACKSPACE="guess"
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf content:
This file was confirmed to be correctly present and configured for gb layout
(it was initially missing and manually created).
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "system-keyboard"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
Option "XkbVariant" ""
EndSection
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration:
This command was run, and "English (UK)" was selected through the prompts.
update-initramfs:
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all was executed and the system rebooted to ensure
changes to vconsole.conf were picked up.
Kernel Command Line Check:
cat /proc/cmdline showed no overriding keyboard-related parameters.
systemd-localed.service Behavior:
systemctl status systemd-localed consistently shows the service starting,
running for approximately 30 seconds, and then becoming inactive (dead),
despite no explicit error messages in journalctl -u systemd-localed. localectl
set-keymap gb fails with "Access denied" due to this non-persistent service.
dmesg output:
sudo dmesg | grep -i "keyboard\|keymap\|console" shows no errors or warnings
related to keyboard or keymap application during boot. keyboard-setup.service
reports starting and finishing successfully.
Impact: The issue affects core input across different application types
(terminal, web browser), suggesting a fundamental misinterpretation of
the UK layout by the Wayland session itself, or its interaction with the
underlying input stack.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 25.04
Package: cinnamon 6.4.8-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.14.0-15.15-generic 6.14.0
Uname: Linux 6.14.0-15-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.32.0-0ubuntu5.1
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: X-Cinnamon
Date: Sun Jun 8 13:53:27 2025
InstallationDate: Installed on 2024-03-14 (451 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64
(20240220)
SourcePackage: cinnamon
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to plucky on 2025-04-20 (49 days ago)
** Affects: cinnamon (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Tags: amd64 apport-bug plucky wayland-session
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You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Cinnamon Developers, which is subscribed to cinnamon in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2113494
Title:
UK keyboard's '£' symbol (Shift+3) outputs '#' exclusively in
Cinnamon's Wayland session on Ubuntu, despite all system-wide keyboard
configurations being correctly set for UK English
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