Shift, Control, Alt, and Super suddenly stopped working in my desktop environment and most applications. I can still see the key presses registering in the keyboard preview in Settings, but programs are not responding to them—for example, Ctrl+A does nothing, and even pressing Enter in the terminal does not work. Discord and a few other applications still accept the keys.
This started after I tried creating a custom keyboard layout for Old English. I deleted that layout and switched back to the US layout, but the problem remained. I'm using Bazzite with an NVIDIA GPU, and I'm not sure whether my session is running under Wayland or X11. Has anyone seen this before or knows how to reset the affected keyboard settings?
4 Answers
For terminal testing, you can try a normal text entry first and then test combinations such as Ctrl+Shift+C or Ctrl+Shift+V. However, if Enter and basic terminal interaction are also failing, the issue is probably broader than a single shortcut. In this case, testing with a fresh user profile is more useful than changing individual shortcuts.
It could also be a global shortcut or input configuration issue in the desktop session. Check which session you’re using—Wayland or X11—and review the desktop’s keyboard shortcuts and input-source settings. Since this began after creating a custom layout, removing the layout may not have removed every related setting.
I’m on Bazzite, but I couldn’t remember whether the session was Wayland or X11. I’ll check the session details and inspect the global shortcuts.
Creating a new user account fixed the problem, which confirms that something in the original profile was interfering with keyboard input. You can move your personal files to the new account, but avoid copying hidden configuration directories wholesale, since one of them may contain the broken keyboard or desktop settings. Copy documents, downloads, and other personal data first, then reconfigure applications as needed.
This sounds like a user-specific keyboard or desktop configuration problem rather than a hardware failure, especially since the key presses appear in the Settings preview. A quick way to confirm that is to create a new user account and test the keyboard there. If everything works in the new account, your original user’s keyboard or shortcut configuration is the likely cause.
I couldn’t type properly in the terminal at all, so I tested with another account instead.