[SOLVED] Alt F4 stopped working

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triplemaya
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[SOLVED] Alt F4 stopped working

Post by triplemaya »

Alt F4 to close a window stopped working, and so did Control F4 to close a tab in Firefox. Not sure if this was after an update or not as they have been quite frequent lately.

I got Alt F4 working again in dconf - it was not changed, it was set correctly but not working, but changing it and changing it back restored the functionality. I cannot seem to get Control F4 working at all.

What is bugging me is that I have three identical installations, and the other two are unaffected. This must mean something, but I don't know what!

Using LMDE2 with Mate 1.18.0 all up to date.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
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gm10

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by gm10 »

Did you try a reboot? That usually clears issues like this.
triplemaya
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Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:12 am

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by triplemaya »

Thanks. Nope. No change.
gm10

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by gm10 »

Hmm. Since the one issue was dconf/gsettings related, how about creating a new user just for testing to see if it works with everything at default settings. Then you'll know if it's conflicting user settings at fault or something else.
triplemaya
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Posts: 69
Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:12 am

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by triplemaya »

Thanks. Same problem. New user has no Alt F4 and no Control F4 functionality.
gm10

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by gm10 »

Try switching the keyboard mode:
sudo kbd_mode -s

What window manager are you using, MATE default (Marco) or another one?
triplemaya
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Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:12 am

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by triplemaya »

Thanks. No change.
I'm using MATE default
gm10

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by gm10 »

Hmm. I only got 2 more ideas:
1. Are you possibly using a keyboard with an Fn key and an Fn-lock function? That could block F4 from its usual function.
2. Some program you are running must be intercepting that key combination. AFAIK Ctrl+F4 is an application-specific shortcut and MATE/Marco's default configuration does not define it anywhere, so it would have to be something else overriding it.
triplemaya
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Posts: 69
Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:12 am

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by triplemaya »

Thanks. Yes! Doh. Fn lock. ( and yet re-setting it in dconf made it work ?! )
Anyway, SOLVED. Thank you so much for your help.
gm10

Re: Alt F4 stopped working

Post by gm10 »

What probably happened is you simply re-defined it to its Fn modified keycode.

Anyway, happy to help.
triplemaya
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Joined: Tue Nov 29, 2011 9:12 am

Re: [SOLVED] Alt F4 stopped working

Post by triplemaya »

Aha! So F lock does not do away with the keystroke but reassigns it.
When I went back to re-reassign alt f4 it was assigned to Alt New
Got both working fine again now.
Thanks once again.
gm10

Re: [SOLVED] Alt F4 stopped working

Post by gm10 »

triplemaya wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 3:24 pm Aha! So F lock does not do away with the keystroke but reassigns it.
Fn lock is just like Caps lock, except instead of pretending you are constantly holding Shift down it is pretending you are constantly holding Fn down.
Those are modifier keys to allow the same physical key on the keyboard to have a different meaning (keycode). Since you had keybinds defined for the unmodified keycode they didn't trigger for the Fn-modified keycode while Fn-lock was active - you were effectively pressing Ctrl+Fn+F4.
triplemaya
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Re: [SOLVED] Alt F4 stopped working

Post by triplemaya »

Thanks. NOW I understand! :)
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