Cinnamon: Keyboard layout stuck to English US

[ovisergiu]

```

• Cinnamon version (cinnamon --version) 3.8.8.
• Distribution - (Mint 17.2, Arch, Fedora 25, etc...) Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon
• Graphics hardware and driver used: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Bonaire XTX [Radeon R7 260X/360] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
• 64 bit
  ```

Issue
During Mint installtion I let keyboard layout to English US.
After successful installation of Mint 19, I add the Romanian keyboard layout. I put the Romanian layout in the top of the layout list but after every restart of Mint 19, the default layout is English US... Romanian is still there but is not the default.

Steps to reproduce

Expected behaviour

Other information

[icarter09]

Cinnamon 3.8.8
Linux Mint 19 64bit
Intel Corp HD Graphics 530

Verified that this is an issue. Issue #7606 seems to be very closely related, but that issue was closed out and working correctly now.

[ovisergiu]

Nope, the problems still exists... Today, when I first started the PC, the Romanian layout was default and without doing anything I just restarted the PC and the US was back again as default...

[icarter09]

@ovisergiu thanks for the confirmation and that is exactly what I'm seeing as well. I'll start taking a look into this issue.

[icarter09]

@ovisergiu can you list the steps to reproduce this issue? I'm pretty sure I know them, but don't want to assume anything.

[ovisergiu]

Sure!
When installing Linux Mint 19, I let the English US but right after the Welcome screen appeared I openes Menu - Keyboards - Layouts tab - clicked the + sign - browsed for Romanian (standard), clic Add and in the list I could see English (US) being first and Romanian (standard) being second, but using the arrows from the same window I moved Romanian first and English to second. I also checked a box from the right part of the windows (Use a country flag, if available, to represent keyboards layouts). That was is. I restart the PC and noticed that the English flag was being displayed near the clock. When clicked the flag I could see the Romanian one too. Gave another restart but still English was the first to be displayed. Then I gave up, and I used the PC to watch movies and listen to music but watching carefully every time when I start Mint to see which flag will be displayed. Few times Romanian flag was displayed but most of the times, the English is displayed first. And of course, not just displayed, but the keyboard would type using the appropriate keys of the flag being displayed.

[lucky62]

I have the same problem. I have installed two layouts - english and slovak. English layout is always selected at start-up even the Slovak is selected as default (first in list). Keyboard applet is showing English flag. Note that I can switch the layouts - but I have changed the key combination of "Switching to another layout" to "Both Shift together" (LM19, Cinnamon)

[ovisergiu]

I ”solved” this problem by reinstalling Mint and choosing Romanian as Default during installation and English as second. Good luck.

[MauroFoti]

I ”solved” this problem by reinstalling Mint and choosing Romanian as Default during installation and English as second. Good luck.

I've also "solved" in another, less drastic way. I had the same problem with my Italian and English layout, and everytime the US would always be selected as startup. What I did was removing the Italian layout and adding it again immediately after, which solved the issue.

It looks like Cinnamon is somehow looking for layouts in cronological order, from the latest installed to the oldest, rather than following the order you give it.

[torchf1re]

I think cinnamon uses the Xorg keyboard configuration. There are multiple ways to set these configs. See:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg/Keyboard_configuration

Example solution using localectl:
localectl set-x11-keymap \

[Vahan86]

@ovisergiu, is this still an issue in Cinnamon 4.2?

[ManIVIctorious]

I had exactly the same behaviour in cinnamon 4.2 in a virtual machine at university, it seems to be resolved since the release of 4.4 though.
At least for me, the issue does not exist anymore

[ovisergiu]

@ovisergiu, is this still an issue in Cinnamon 4.2?

I am still having that problem.
I do not know how to update my Cinnamon version.
My Mint is updated daily but Cinnamon is still version 4.0.10

[milossramek]

Hi, I still have the problem on freshly installed mint 19.3 (cinnamon 4.4.8+tricia). It is sad, since I've just persuaded a colleague to switch from Windows.

[ovisergiu]

Hi, I still have the problem on freshly installed mint 19.3 (cinnamon 4.4.8+tricia). It is sad, since I've just persuaded a colleague to switch from Windows.

Yes, it is still present (the problem) and I still use Linux Mint but I upgraded to 19.3 x64 with Cinammon 4.4.8

[NicoG60]

I'm having the same issue with Mint 20 and Cinnamon 4.6.6.
Only having a British layout installed and Cinnamon seems to load the US one on startup.

system info

System:    Kernel: 5.4.0-42-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.6.6 
           wm: muffin dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 20 Ulyana base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 81LW v: Lenovo IdeaPad L340-15API serial: <filter> 
           Chassis: type: 10 v: Lenovo IdeaPad L340-15API serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: No DPK serial: <filter> UEFI: LENOVO v: ARCN33WW 
           date: 10/28/2019 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 37.4 Wh condition: 37.4/37.4 Wh (100%) volts: 13.0/11.2 
           model: Celxpert L18C3PF2 serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx bits: 64 
           type: MT MCP arch: Zen+ rev: 1 L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 33538 
           Speed: 1479 MHz min/max: 1400/2100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1477 2: 1477 3: 1477 
           4: 1475 5: 3693 6: 3693 7: 1478 8: 1477 
Graphics:  Device-1: AMD Picasso vendor: Lenovo driver: amdgpu v: 5.6.0.20.20 bus ID: 04:00.0 
           chip ID: 1002:15d8 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: amdgpu,ati unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics v: 4.6.14736 Core Profile Context 20.20 
           compat-v: 4.6.14736 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: AMD Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.1 chip ID: 1002:15de 
           Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: snd_rn_pci_acp3x v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.5 chip ID: 1022:15e2 
           Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 04:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-42-generic 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: rtl8821ce v: v5.5.2.1_35598.20191029 port: 3000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
           chip ID: 10ec:c821 
           IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 2000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 1.13 TiB used: 452.61 GiB (39.2%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Corsair model: Force MP510 size: 223.57 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s 
           lanes: 4 serial: <filter> 
           ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD10SPZX-24Z10 size: 931.51 GiB 
           speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> temp: 38 C 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 211.46 GiB used: 12.43 GiB (5.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
           ID-2: /home size: 915.89 GiB used: 440.17 GiB (48.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 7.63 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 
USB:       Hub: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Device-1: 1-1:2 info: IMC Networks Integrated Camera type: Video driver: uvcvideo 
           rev: 2.0 chip ID: 13d3:5a08 
           Hub: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 3.1 chip ID: 1d6b:0003 
           Hub: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 2.0 chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Device-2: 3-2:2 info: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: Bluetooth driver: btusb rev: 1.1 
           chip ID: 0bda:c024 
           Hub: 4-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 1 rev: 3.1 chip ID: 1d6b:0003 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 46.6 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 46 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/amdgpu-pro-local.list 
           1: deb [ trusted=yes ] file: /var/opt/amdgpu-pro-local/ ./
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com ulyana main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           2: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http: //archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/skype-stable.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https: //repo.skype.com/deb stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/slack.list 
           1: deb https: //packagecloud.io/slacktechnologies/slack/debian/ jessie main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teams.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] https: //packages.microsoft.com/repos/ms-teams stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/teamviewer.list 
           1: deb http: //linux.teamviewer.com/deb stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] http: //packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main
Info:      Processes: 264 Uptime: 16m Memory: 5.75 GiB used: 1.58 GiB (27.6%) Init: systemd v: 245 
           runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Client: Unknown python3.8 client inxi: 3.0.38 

[NicoG60]

I tried to setup the US layout alongside the British one so I can have the little flag selector in the system tray. It seemed to work when I set it up but the keyboard layout applet was not loading after the next restart.
Furthermore, I tried to add the applet manually. When I clicked the plus button: The applets seemed to crash.
I'll have a deeper look at that crash and try to find a javascript stack dump that could help me/us track down that issue.
(If you have any idea where that can be found, that'd help. The Cinnamon looking glass doesn't say anything)

[NicoG60]

OK I've been looking into the issue.
Some context first, I've recently reinstalled my computer with Mint 20. My home directory is stored on another drive, so once the installation finished, I just edited fstab to mount the drive in the right place.

I think some configuration of the old cinnamon polluted the new installation (like a file in ~/.config or ~/.local, you name it). I found the ticket #8257 in which they discuss the keyboard applet crash I mentioned. (btw, I've seen the same error messages described in that ticket).

The last comment of @camypaj describes what he did and unexpectedly resolved his issue (pasting it here for completeness):

EDIT: what fixed it for me:

1. in keyboard settings, click "reset to default"
2. right-click on a panel, and edit panel. Keyboard layout icon will appear, as a keyboard. Right-click it, and remove that applet.
3. log out, and log back in (that was enough for me, but I could try and reproduce it)
4. re-create the layouts
5. add the keyboard applet again.

Good news is that my original problem is now also resolved :)

I only did the 3 first steps as I only need 1 keyboard layout. Just hitting that "Reset to default" button seemed to do the trick. I have no idea what happened under the hood. Probably it just reloaded an initial configuration stored in /etc and which was not corrupted by my fstab trick.

It's solved for me, hope it will help others.

[alextpedro]

I can confirm that this issue is still ongoing. The steps posted by NicoG60 did not help.
System Info here.