iBus issue with Wayland

Hey when I login to a Wayland session, I get an iBus notification like this.

Please unset QT_IM_MODULE and GTK_IM_MODULE environment variables and ‘ibus-daemon --panel disable’ should be executed as a child process of ibus-ui-gtk3 component.

I am kinda new to KDE Plasma and Linux altogether, so would be nice if you guys could help me debug the issue.

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I have the same message, after upgrading kubuntu from 23.04 to 23.10 and cannot find how to remove. Possibly to do with the ‘ibus’ virtual keyboard component?

I’ll add a note that I was having this issue with Kali Linux (based on debian-testing).

I have since moved to Kubuntu and it works fine even after a successful upgrade from 23.04 to 23.10.

I’ll add that I just installed a fresh Debian testing and I also cant seem to find any resources on how to make the recommended changes. if y’all come across something give a shout.

I tried some of following

Reinstal: ibus-gtk, ibus-gtk3 and ibus-gtk4:
sudo apt install --reinstall ibus-gtk3

Disabled Virtual Keyboard in KDE settings
And set KDE desktop session to “Start with an empty session”

Restarting ibus-daemon provides additional info
ibus-daemon -r
and
ibus-daemon --help

It seems like the suggested instruction is not functioning correctly: KDE setting: " “Input Devices” → “Virtual Keyboard” section and select “IBus Wayland” icon and click “Apply” button to configure IBus in Wayland…
There is an additonal instructions for other desktop sessions: to unset “QT_IM_MODULE and GTK_IM_MODULE” - but where / how? - I read how to set an environment variable, but not how to ‘unset’ (Perhaps removing from where it is set - but where?)

AFAICT, QT_IM_MODULE is set by the package im-config.
I didn’t investigate very deeply, but removing the package (apt remove im-config), followed by a reboot I managed to get rid of the annoying pop up.

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Just a suggestion:

Go to /etc/environment.d
Create a file called ibus-custom.conf

Add these two lines:

unset GTK_IM_MODULE
unset QT_IM_MODULE

Now these enviornment variables should be unset every time the OS boots up.

If that doesn’t work you could try adding these lines to /etc/bash.bashrc file and start a bash shell on startup immediately.
Make sure to backup those files so you could easily restore them if anything goes wrong.

2 Likes

I followed this suggestion and it works perfectly. The im-config package is not pinned by any other KDE package.

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I don’t think environment.d works like that. It’s just a config file. You can’t use shell commands like unset.

I had the same problem on my Debian testing system since I installed Zoom (with a dependency to the ibus package).
After removing the im-config package, everything works as a charm here too!
(and some more people got the same problem after installing Zoom as well)

Thank you, apt remove im-config fixed it for me also.

Removing im-config (apt purge im-config) has a side effect: the “TAB” key no longer works as expected in GTK appication: it does not move from input field to other input field. For example when I compose a new e-mail in thunderbird, I cannot autocomplete or switch out the To field of the new e-mail.
Other solutions ?

2 Likes

Thanks for the help [sudo apt remove im-config] worked great.

Another solution is to run im-configOKYesdo not activate any IM from im-config and use desktop defaultOK and then reboot.

The env variables will no longer be set, and no warning is shown.

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Thank you!!!
I’ve spent so much time looking for this <3
And many people on the internet still struggle =)

Thank you very much. Your post was very helpful.

Tried a few suggestions from other sources - this was the only one that worked for me. Thank you!

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Thank you it really worked for me (ubuntu 24.10 with KDE 6.1.5)

Tanks! You just need to be aware of the fact that you do loose some functionality by this solution. I lost this sign in LibreOffice: “–” because it was made by typing to short hyphens and automatically replaced. (Loosing that auto-replace function in LibreOffice was much worse to me that that one error message once in a while, I do not reboot very often.)

Executed as SUDO this worked a treat for me no need to muck round changing virtual keyboards or config files.