I upgraded and now I when I press print screen on keyboard button it doesn't work

I upgraded and now I when I press print screen on keyboard button it doesn’t work.
I didn’t need to press any other key like Control + Print Screen, I was only using that single key before and it worked fine before i upgraded. Thanks in advance.

I am on 6.11+parrot-amd64

cat /etc/*-release
PRETTY_NAME=“Parrot Security 6.3 (lorikeet)”
NAME=“Parrot Security”
VERSION_ID=“6.3”
VERSION=“6.3 (lorikeet)”
VERSION_CODENAME=lory
ID=debian

Hi! Folks here wouldn’t be able to speak for what the upgrade process for that Linux distribution is, or what customization they might apply - but in general, the keyboard shortcut settings for Spectacle (the Plasma screenshot utility) are located in System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts:

You should be able to set the shortcut you want, for the function you want, on that screen.

Does this look like its supposed to for the print screen button to work proper?

Aside from the differences between what look like old vs. new versions of Plasma, that should be OK - but perhaps you could double-check by going to set a custom shortcut for launching Spectacle, then pressing the Print Screen key and seeing what happens?

Launch Spectacle was already set at Print ( red line on image). Am I just repeating what is already there? Does yours work just by pressing the Print Screen key on your keyboard?

Do I have the old or new version of Plasma? if old then how do I get new?

Hmm, do any of the other shortcut combinations listed there work - ex. Shift+Print Screen to start a capture of a rectangular region? Does opening Spectacle from the Application Launcher work?

Debian Stable-based Linux distributions almost always distribute older versions of upstream software like KDE Plasma, as an intended consequence of the Debian packaging model. Distributions that prioritize staying more in sync with the upstream projects include ones like Arch Linux, Fedora, openSUSE Tumbleweed, etc.

Didn’t work.

[quote=“johnandmegh, post:6, topic:29878”]
Does opening Spectacle from the Application Launcher work?
[/quote] It’s absent, I typed in search too.

I have this now in settings

Ah, Spectacle is the Plasma screenshot tool, so if it’s missing from your system then that would explain why those aren’t working!

Whatever your distribution’s package management approach is, I’d recommend installing/reinstalling Spectacle and trying things again :slight_smile:

1 Like

Thank you I have installed Spectacle again.

But I notice that when I press the PrintScreen button on my keyboard I don’t hear the camera snapshot sound to indicate something is being screenshot; it worked that way in the past, I would like that sound back. And the Spectacle box would pop up automatically, to the best of my memory that how it worked before things stuffed up after upgrading my os.

I need to be able to just press one button to capture whats on my screen because sometimes as you know things disappear from your screen by the time you go to applications menu and type in ‘Spectacle’ e.g. say you wanted to capture a pop up box error, in circumstances like that.

Just one button like PrintScreen is what I am after as the signal for Specatcle to take the screenshot would be ideal. Is there a way to do that based on what you see with the image I have attached below? Thanks

press print and launch spectacle

then configure spectacle in the general tab to always take a screenshot when launching (or always use the last capture mode)

you can also set it to automatically save in a specific location (i use the desktop so i can see it was captured)

the other shortcuts there are good for taking a screen grab of just a portion of the screen like the active window or the window under the cursor.

its good work on the muscle memory for those when you need to take a quick capture of something transient.

2 Likes

Thanks the Print Screen button works as normal now but I don’t hear the camera sound that originally accompanied it before I upgraded my os. The upgrade stuff things up. I would like the camera sound, how do we get it back?

For what it’s worth, I’ve never had a camera sound upon taking a screenshot on any of the OSes I’ve used KDE Plasma on (primarily Kubuntu, openSUSE and Fedora) - perhaps that was something being added by your distribution?

If you’d like to add such a sound yourself, you could set that in the System Settings app > Notifications > Application Settings > Spectacle - below is how it looks on KDE Plasma 6.3.2, though it might look different if you’re running an older Plasma version:

on kubuntu 22.04 the camera shutter sound can be found here

/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/camera-shutter.oga

and the settings page can be found at

settings > notifications > application specific settings (button) > spectacle > configure events (button) > play a sound

1 Like

Thanks, mine resembles yours exactly and I found the sound in the same location and clicked apply, then ok. I tested it but still don’t hear anything, my volume is not muted and at full capacity.

dpkg -l | grep plasma-desktop
ii  kde-plasma-desktop                            5:142                                        amd64        KDE Plasma Desktop and minimal set of applications
ii  plasma-desktop                                4:5.27.5-2                                   amd64        Tools and widgets for the desktop
ii  plasma-desktop-data                           4:5.27.5-2                                   all          Tools and widgets for the desktop data files

Should I upgrade Plasma too?

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Parrot Security 6.3 (lorikeet)
Release:        6.3
Codename:       lory