intrepid regression: rdesktop overrides window manger key binding even when -K is used

Bug #270997 reported by ktp420
132
This bug affects 16 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
rdesktop (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
Nominated for Intrepid by ktp420
Nominated for Jaunty by ktp420
Nominated for Karmic by ktp420
tsclient (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
Nominated for Intrepid by ktp420
Nominated for Jaunty by ktp420
Nominated for Karmic by ktp420

Bug Description

Binary package hint: rdesktop

when you remote desktop using rdesktop or tsclient, you can specify not to override window manger key bindings; it rdesktop -K option and check "Enable window manger key bindings" in tsclient. But this option is not working in latest Ubuntu Intrepid.

To reproduce:

launch rdesktop with -K or tsclient with Enable window Manager's Key Bindings" checked in Performance tab. I also had fullscreen but doesn't work either way.
Type inside the remote session, like typing your password at the login screen.
use the ctrl+alt+arrow keys to switch desktops

This is working correctly in Hardy or when you downgrade to 1.6.0-0ubuntu2 version of rdesktop...so it is a regression.

Revision history for this message
ddumont (ddumont) wrote :

confirmed, just upgraded to the alpha5 from hardy

ktp420 (ktp420)
Changed in rdesktop:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
ktp420 (ktp420) wrote :

This is regression introduce by following patch merger:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rdesktop/+bug/251709

Revision history for this message
ktp420 (ktp420) wrote :
Revision history for this message
ddumont (ddumont) wrote :

Assigned to Benjamin Drung: looks like he merged in the regression.

Changed in rdesktop:
assignee: nobody → bdrung
ktp420 (ktp420)
Changed in tsclient:
status: New → Confirmed
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Benjamin Drung (bdrung) wrote :

If this bug is a regression introduced by patch for bug #251709 (like ktp420 wrote above) then Steve Kowalik should be assigned to this bug and not me. The bug is probably introduced with 1.6.0-1ubuntu1 and not 1.6.0-1ubuntu2.

Changed in rdesktop:
assignee: bdrung → nobody
Revision history for this message
ddumont (ddumont) wrote : Re: [Bug 270997] Re: intrepid regression: rdesktop overrides window manger key binding even when -K is used

Your name was on the merge in. Reassign it if you think it should go to
him.

On Oct 23, 2008 5:18 PM, "Benjamin Drung" <email address hidden> wrote:

If this bug is a regression introduced by patch for bug #251709 (like
ktp420 wrote above) then Steve Kowalik should be assigned to this bug
and not me. The bug is probably introduced with 1.6.0-1ubuntu1 and not
1.6.0-1ubuntu2.

** Changed in: rdesktop (Ubuntu)
    Assignee: Benjamin Drung (bdrung) => (unassigned)

-- intrepid regression: rdesktop overrides window manger key binding even
when -K is used https://...

Benjamin Drung (bdrung)
Changed in rdesktop:
assignee: nobody → stevenk
Revision history for this message
Andy Kniss (akniss) wrote :

This is also affecting me, and makes it impossible to switch desktops when I've got my rdesktop in fullscreen mode. Can anyone suggest a workaround until this is fixed? This is very frustrating to try and deal with after getting so used to having my Windows RDP on one workspace and moving seamlessly to other workspaces in Ubuntu with Alt+Tab.

Revision history for this message
Andy Kniss (akniss) wrote :

Never mind on the request for a workaround. I removed rdesktop using Synaptic, and installed the older version .deb that was posted above by ktp420. The -K switch is now working again.

Revision history for this message
Benjamin Drung (bdrung) wrote :

Can you test following version:

https://launchpad.net/~bdrung/+archive/+files/rdesktop_1.6.0-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
https://launchpad.net/~bdrung/+archive/+files/rdesktop_1.6.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

If this version works, the regression comes from 1.6.0-2ubuntu1. If this version has the bug, then it was introduced with 1.6.0-1ubuntu1.

Revision history for this message
Andy Kniss (akniss) wrote :

I just tested the .deb posted by Benjamin (rdesktop_1.6.0-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb). The -K switch is also broken with that package. Thanks.

Revision history for this message
ktp420 (ktp420) wrote : RE: [Bug 270997] Re: intrepid regression: rdesktop overrides window manger key binding even when -K is used

When I posted the deb, I went down the list of changed versions until the latest that worked.
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kaervos (eudoxus) wrote :

I can verify that there was a regression with rdesktop that prevents the window manager key bindings from working. I can also verify that 1.6.0-0ubuntu2 is the latest version without the issue.

Revision history for this message
AlvinS (bigstras) wrote :

I can also confirm that the -K option is not working with version 2ubuntu1.
In that version, the -y option was introduced, and with -yK my compiz key bindings are working (mostly).

There are a couple problems with this:
Ctrl+Alt+Enter doesn't work, but I get around this by specifying the window geometry as 25 pixels less than the height of my screen (just enough to show my top panel).
Ctrl+Alt inputs a new line to the remote computer, so when I try to rotate the cube with Ctrl+Alt+Right, if i press the combination slowly, I get a few blank lines in notepad on the remote computer.
The PageUp key is mapped as a /, Shift+PageUp is a ?.
The PageDown key isn't working at all.
The Down arrow is mapped as a windows key.
So basically, yeah, the key bindings work, but it is essentially useless to me to have this functionality without a working up/down and pageup/pagedown, as I do a good deal of programming on the remote machine.

I tried specifying a keymap file, even making sure that all my keys were mapped correctly in it (which it seems they were by default), but the -k option in rdesktop is apparently overrided by the -y option.

My plan is going to be to go back to 0ubuntu1 and wait for a fix...hope some of this info helps.

Revision history for this message
AlvinS (bigstras) wrote :

actually, i guess -y was introduced with raw keyboard support in version 1ubuntu1 rather than what i implied above.

Revision history for this message
Aaron Roydhouse (aaron-roydhouse) wrote :

The -K option doesn't work for me either in rdesktop. Installing the older 1.6.0-0ubuntu2 version fixes the problem.

The older version also fixes a - what I guess could be related - mouse grab problem. With the current version, gnome, and focus-follows-mouse, once the keyboard gets grabbed you also can't move the rdesktop window or drop-down gnome menus until you can get the focus to another window. Luckily you can minimise or close the rdesktop window or click on the workspace applet to escape.

BTW, If that '-y' option has been added then the man page is now out of date as it doesn't mention it.

Intrepid has been quite a regression for mixed Windows environments, with both a faulty pptp and rdesktop, neither of which is fixed yet in the official release. Not good if conversions from the Windows user base are any sort of priority.

Aaron.

Revision history for this message
Procion (klebed) wrote :

Confirming same problem on Interpid. rdesktop 1.6.0-2ubuntu1.

In addition can say that when I working in windowed rdesktop, I can't call gnome menus, and drag rdesktop window by mouse, but when i clicking another window's header, switching to it, and gnome menus and other features works well.

Procion (klebed)
Changed in tsclient:
status: Confirmed → Invalid
Revision history for this message
ddumont (ddumont) wrote :

Procion, don't touch the status of this bug report.

Changed in tsclient:
status: Invalid → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Procion (klebed) wrote :

This id NOT a Tsclient bug! Only rdesktop...

Revision history for this message
Steve Beattie (sbeattie) wrote :

Removing regression-2.6.27 tag since this is not a bug in the linux kernel

Revision history for this message
Dawning (dawning) wrote :

I too have this problem on Version 1.6.0 on Ubuntu 8.10

Looks like it's been a problem for quite some time.

Revision history for this message
ktp420 (ktp420) wrote :

And seems like it will be for long time since no one really cares about it.

> Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 21:43:54 +0000
> From: <email address hidden>
> To: <email address hidden>
> Subject: [Bug 270997] Re: intrepid regression: rdesktop overrides window manger key binding even when -K is used
>
> I too have this problem on Version 1.6.0 on Ubuntu 8.10
>
> Looks like it's been a problem for quite some time.
>

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Revision history for this message
Dawning (dawning) wrote :

Well.. Maybe I can take a crack at it. Not sure how deep the rabbit hole goes, but it does effect me.

Revision history for this message
sirianni (eric-sirianni) wrote :

ktp420 - not sure who exactly you mean by "no one really cares about it" - the package maintainers/developers or the users?

As a user, I certainly care about it. I can not / will not upgrade past 1.6.0-0ubuntu2 until this is fixed. This is a major regression in my mind.

Revision history for this message
ktp420 (ktp420) wrote :

I have already force not to upgrade rdesktop because of this.

I know the users care...but seems like dev or the person who merged the patch that introduced the regression does not care. At least remove the patch because of the regression..at least until better solution is found for the problem.

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Revision history for this message
Ng Oon-Ee (ngoonee) wrote :

Same issue here, downgrading fixes. I can confirm regression + provide info (debug or testing) if requested.

Revision history for this message
Dawning (dawning) wrote :

Okay, well I looked a bit further in to it - And there's already a lot of noise about this plus a patch that patches the patch that introduced the regression. ktp420 has a post pretty early on that links to where that's discussed.

I don't understand why this patch isn't rolled in to the package? Does it reflect some kind of disconnect between fixing bugs in Ubuntu itself and individual projects that are not distro specific or something? I'm pretty new to how bugs are handled with Open Source, so I'm really just genuinely interested how it goes.

Revision history for this message
Eric Haase (erichaase) wrote :

looks like 1.6.0-0 was removed so I'm currently using 1.5.0-3 which works:

http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/r/rdesktop/rdesktop_1.5.0-3+cvs20071006_i386.deb

Revision history for this message
Yannick (splitsch) wrote :

Hello,

I'm using karmic beta, fully up-to-date, and I can't use the CTRL+ALT+right of left arrow.

Can anyone help ?

I use rdesktop, 1.6.0-2ubuntu2 and tsclient 0.150-2ubuntu-2
It doesn't work with gnome-rdp either.

Thank you so much !

Revision history for this message
Brian May (brian-microcomaustralia) wrote :

Hello,

This bug has nothing to do with bug #251709, which is related to keyboard layouts. It should not be marked as a duplicate.

This bug means rdesktop is unusable with keyboard only window managers, such as ratpoison and stumpwm, as it is not possible to switch to another application without the Window manager keyboard bindings.

I find it difficult to understand that it has been over a year since this report was first filed, I have lost track of how many Ubuntu releases have been made (I believe there is another release just around the corner), and there has still been no sign of a solution, other then to manually install an older version.

Brian May

Revision history for this message
FaberfoX (faberfox) wrote :

Yannick, you should downgrade your package to the one I'm attaching, just uninstall the current version and install this one.

After that, you should pin the package to this version until this gets fixed (if ever...)
To do that, create a file /etc/apt/preferences with the following contents:

Package: rdesktop
Pin: version 1.6.0-0ubuntu2
Pin-Priority: 1001

And finally symlink this file to /var/lib/synaptic/preferences as apt and synaptic use separate files for pinning but with the same syntax

sudo ln -s /var/lib/synaptic/preferences /etc/apt/preferences

Revision history for this message
swarsron (swarsron) wrote :

can someone please upload rdesktop_1.6.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb somewhere? I can't use the i386 version, the original links don't work and google can't find it anymore. I'm using karmic and this is still broken, which kind of sucks since i use ion3 and can't get away from the window without killing it

Revision history for this message
ktp420 (ktp420) wrote :
Revision history for this message
swarsron (swarsron) wrote :

thank you. I don't know why i couldn't find that searching "rdesktop_1.6.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb" on google

Revision history for this message
stovey (stovey) wrote :

> This bug has nothing to do with bug #251709, which is related to keyboard layouts. It should not be marked as a duplicate.

Please unmark the duplicate status! This is a different bug. The -K switch doesn't work anymore, and it hasn't worked for a long time. It has nothing to do with the keyboard layout. Is the maintainer aware?

For me, using multiple virtual desktops, this behavior renders the current version unusable.

Revision history for this message
Brian May (brian-microcomaustralia) wrote :

I agree. Maybe it was the patch for #251709 that introduced this bug, that doesn't make them the same thing. Marking this one as a duplicate is very confusing as the bugs are very different.

The result is that #251709 is actually discussion of two rather different bugs, and this is very confusing in itself.

Please unmark this as a duplicate.

As this bug was opened on the 2008-09-17 and there is still no sign of a solution (other then to get an old version of rdesktop), I think it is even more important to keep the meta information correct.

Brian May

Revision history for this message
David Imhoff (dimhoff) wrote :

The 02_raw_keyboard_support patch seems to be grabbing the keyboard even if the g_grab_keyboard variable is not set. The patch below should fix the patch.

--- /tmp/02_raw_keyboard_support.dpatch 2010-07-19 13:23:14.000000000 +0200
+++ 02_raw_keyboard_support.dpatch 2010-07-19 13:23:31.000000000 +0200
@@ -312,7 +312,7 @@
 +
 + // Mode_switch during XGrabKeyboard fix: Ungrab Keyboard during Mode_switch
 + if ( keysym == XK_Mode_switch ) g_modeswitch_down = True;
-+ if ( g_focused && g_modeswitch_down ) XUngrabKeyboard(g_display, CurrentTime);
++ if ( g_focused && g_grab_keyboard && g_modeswitch_down ) XUngrabKeyboard(g_display, CurrentTime);
 +
                                DEBUG_KBD(("KeyPress for keysym (0x%lx, %s)\n", keysym,
                                           get_ksname(keysym)));
@@ -324,7 +324,7 @@
 +
 + // Mode_switch during XGrabKeyboard fix: Regrab Keyboard after Mode_switch
 + if ( keysym == XK_Mode_switch ) g_modeswitch_down = False;
-+ if ( g_focused && !g_modeswitch_down ) XGrabKeyboard(g_display, g_wnd, True, GrabModeAsync, GrabModeAsync, CurrentTime);
++ if ( g_focused && g_grab_keyboard && !g_modeswitch_down ) XGrabKeyboard(g_display, g_wnd, True, GrabModeAsync, GrabModeAsync, CurrentTime);
 +
                                DEBUG_KBD(("\nKeyRelease for keysym (0x%lx, %s)\n", keysym,
                                           get_ksname(keysym)));

Revision history for this message
jt (johannes-thraen) wrote :

Hi,

this bug still persists (with the (k)ubuntu of today, whichever). I am very thankful that something like rdesktop exists, but this bug is known for 2 years now. And it's a regression if I understood correctly. Every two or three month I check again on the bug just to see that nothing at all has changed.

AND I have also have a gentoo where it works (same version, rdesktop 1.6.0), so I reckon this is an ubuntu package specific problem.

Is somebody going to fix this? Is there a package maintainer or something? What about the patch above, is somebody (semiofficial) going to test it and perhaps put it into the package?

I try to use Linux as my 'productive' system at work. I use rdesktop everyday at work, I am not! the only one.

Revision history for this message
Sandor Kiss (skiss) wrote :

JT,

This works for me now. I believe the Ubuntu 10.10 release fixed it. Here is how it behaves:
rdesktop -----> Alt+Tab switches windows on the REMOTE box
rdesktop -K -----> Alt+Tab switches windows on the LOCAL box

I use Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) with
rdesktop v1.6.0-3ubuntu2 (from the maverick repository)

Revision history for this message
Brian May (brian-microcomaustralia) wrote :

Skiss,

Thought I had already tested it with 10.10 and found it wasn't fixed. I retested, and you are right, it does seem to be working now.

Thanks.

Revision history for this message
Dawning (dawning) wrote :

I find it "awesome" that this issue has remained right up to this moment.. And probably will continue.. Perhaps I need to learn about package maintenance in Ubuntu, patch the current package and maintain the fixed one? I don't really know if I need to have a strong Ubuntu contrib rep for that or what...?

Any tips?

Revision history for this message
Dawning (dawning) wrote :

Ahem, after reading comments #38 and #39 - I'd like to restate my previous comment (#40)...

It seems like we may have a regression here. On Ubuntu 11.04 beta, I'm seeing this again...

:'(

Revision history for this message
Brian May (brian-microcomaustralia) wrote :

Not happy after reading #41, I thought it was fixed for good in #38.

Dawning,

(a) for the record, can you please state what version of rdesktop you have that is broken?

(b) worth manually installing the version from 10.10 - rdesktop 1.6.0-3ubuntu2 - and see if this helps.

Thanks

Brian May

Revision history for this message
Sandor Kiss (skiss) wrote :

Dawning, Brian,

I just tested Beta 2 (I didn't try Beta 1) of Ubuntu 11.04 (released on 4/14/2011). I didn't apply any package updates, since I'm just running it from a USB flash drive.
The -K switch works as expected for me:

with -K -----> Alt+Tab switches windows on the LOCAL box
without -K -----> Alt+Tab switches windows on the REMOTE box

rdesktop version:
1.6.0-3ubuntu4

Revision history for this message
Brian May (brian-microcomaustralia) wrote :

Based on the conflicting reports, I guess I am going to have to test this myself then. I do have plans to upgrade a computer to natty beta 2, might take several days though.

For reference these are the changelog entries between natty and maverick versions:

rdesktop (1.6.0-3ubuntu4) natty; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/debian/patches/16_lp667275.dpatch: fix more 64bit
    crashes, from upstream, thanks to Stephan Diestelhorst (LP: #667275).

 -- Kees Cook <email address hidden> Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:55:09 -0800

rdesktop (1.6.0-3ubuntu3) natty; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/15_lp192218.dpatch: fix -g workarea on 64 bit machines
    (LP: #192218)

 -- Jamie Strandboge <email address hidden> Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:18:10 -0600

I don't think anything here that looks like it might have affected this bug...

Revision history for this message
Brian May (brian-microcomaustralia) wrote :

It seems to work perfectly for me on Ubuntu natty, despite the claims in #41.

Curtis Hovey (sinzui)
Changed in rdesktop (Ubuntu):
assignee: Steve Kowalik (stevenk) → Curtis Hovey (sinzui)
assignee: Curtis Hovey (sinzui) → nobody
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

This bug report is being closed due to your last comment regarding this being fixed with an update. For future reference you can manage the status of your own bugs by clicking on the current status in the yellow line and then choosing a new status in the revealed drop down box. You can learn more about bug statuses at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status. Thank you again for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please submit any future bugs you may find.

Changed in tsclient (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Invalid
Changed in rdesktop (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
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