Fcitx forcefully activates Japanese input mode when I enter text to Konsole and Yakuake

phanect · February 12, 2025, 5:33am

I’m a Japanese-speaking fcitx user, and recently, I have experienced a bug with Konsole/Yakuake, fcitx, Plasma, or something else.

When I type a character on Konsole and Yakuake, the input mode is forcefully changed to Japanese Hiragana regardless of the input mode I use on the other apps.
I can switch back to English by pressing the key to deactivate the input method (Hankaku/Zenkaku key), but I have to press the key every time I open Yakuake and Konsole.

First, I set the input mode to English. I pressed the “a” key on Kate, and “a” is displayed in Kate as expected.
Next, I switched to Konsole, then I pressed “a” again. I expected “a” to be displayed as well, but Japanese “あ” is displayed instead. This means that the Japanese input method is enabled on Konsole.
At last, I went back to Kate and pressed “a”, then “a” was displayed. This may imply that the input method mode is separately managed on Konsole.

I tried Electron apps (GitHub Desktop Linux) and GTK apps (Meld) instead of Kate, but the results were the same.

When I tried Google Chrome’s address bar, the result was the same, but when I tried with a text field in a website on Google Chrome, the behavior was a bit different:

Enter “a” on a website’s text field on Google Chrome, then “a” is displayed.
Switch to Konsole and enter “a” again, then “a” is displayed. (expected)
Switch from Konsole to Yakuake and enter “a” again, then Japanese “あ” is displayed. (unexpected)

I took a screencast to show the current behavior. I have never pressed keys to activate/deactivate/toggle the input method while I was taking this screencast.

I guess this is a bug, but I’m not sure if it is a bug of Yakuake, fcitx, Plasma, or something else. I need help to investigate this bug to find the cause.

This issue started to happen several weeks or months ago. It might have started after the Plasma 6.2 upgrade, but I might remember incorrectly. Sorry.

Versions:

The OS/Distro I tested: KDE neon (all updates applied as of 2025/02/12 2:30 AM UTC)
fcitx 5.1.7
Yakuake 24.12.2

Thanks in advance,
Jumpei

cwo · February 12, 2025, 9:17am

今日はphanectさん,

I can’t reproduce this (but Japanese is not my default input, which could be relevant). The behavior of Chrome’s input fields is very odd.

To get the obvious question out of the way: what are your settings for “Reset state on Focus In” and “Share Input State” in the fcitx5 configuration (should be available in the fcitx5 configuration dialog and/or System Settings > Language and Time > Input method, Global Options).

phanect · February 13, 2025, 9:19am

Thank you for your help, @cwo.

I checked my Share Input State option and it is No. I tried to change it to All and Program, but the behavior was the same. (~~However, I didn’t re-login or reboot the OS after I changed the setting.~~ → Update: I tried to reboot the OS after I changed the setting, but the behavior didn’t change.)
I could not find the Reset state on Focus In setting in the fcitx dialog.

Here are the screenshots of my fcitx configuration.

cwo · February 14, 2025, 1:19am

Sorry to hear that you haven’t gotten it to work yet.

I have “Reset state on Focus In” in the Fcitx5 settings in System Settings. If your distribution provides it, you could try installing kcm-fcitx5, I’ve found it provides a more Plasma-like method of configuring fcitx5.

If I select “All” each program goes to the default configuration when I focus it, if I select no each program remembers which language was selected the last time it had focus (with “Share Input State” off, I’m not sure how they interact.

Sorry that I can’t be more helpful; I don’t know too much about the many options that fcitx5 has and how they work together.

phanect · February 15, 2025, 2:02am

Sorry for the slow response.

I guess kcm-fcitx5 is named kde-config-fcitx5 on KDE neon (and its base distro Ubuntu), and it looks like unsupported on the latest KDE neon.
I found it is already installed on my end, but I couldn’t find Input Method section in the KDE System Settings.
I used kde-config-fcitx5 when I used KDE 5, but after upgrade to KDE 6, I stopped to use it. I forgot why, but I guess it didn’t work properly with KDE 6.

Is the Global Options page on KDE System Settings different from the one which I can open from the system tray? I assumed they were the same.

I guess we use different version of fcitx. I use fcitx 5.1.7 from Ubuntu repository, and I guess you use the package from a different distribution.

Thanks anyway for your help.
I will try to ask in the fcitx’s GitHub too.

cwo · February 15, 2025, 8:37am

Yes, that may very well be the case - I switched this computer to Fedora from Tuxedo OS (which is based on Neon’s KDE packaging) a couple of days ago, just before your post, so I didn’t explicitly test it there. The fcitx control panel for System Settings was also not available from there)

(In fact, that it wasn’t available was one factor in me switching in the first place, it made it harder to follow the currently ongoing efforts to improve input method support in Plasma)

Yes, I also think this might be something to ask the fcitx developers directly. I hope you find a solution!

phanect · February 18, 2025, 11:15pm

For the reference: