My Windows/Meta key has randomly stopped working. Pressing it doesn’t bring up the Application Launcher, and shortcuts like Windows+E no longer open the file manager. This applies to both keys and the problem doesn’t happen when I dual boot into Windows and use the same keyboard. I can bind a different shortcut to “Application Launcher” and it will work.
As far as I can tell, this issue came out of nowhere (probably in an update) and hasn’t gone away since.
that`s DE specific, but you do not mention the used Desktop Environmet
Install showmethekey:
sudo showmethekey-cli
And see if the key registers:
{"event_name": "KEYBOARD_KEY", "event_type": 300, "time_stamp": 32280704, "key_name": "KEY_LEFTMETA", "key_code": 125, "state_name": "PRESSED", "state_code": 1}
Sorry, you’re right, I used to have this info in my signature but I must be thinking of a different forum;
Operating System: EndeavourOS
KDE Plasma Version: 6.1.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.6.0
Qt Version: 6.7.3
Kernel Version: 6.11.1-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
Memory: 31.3 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER/PCIe/SSE2
Hahah interesting - no it doesn’t register. Every other key around it does, and that’s when it dawned on me - this is a new keyboard and I think I’ve bumped the “Windows key lock” button when I knocked over something not that long ago and it hit the keyboard.
Sure enough, I toggled the button and the key has started working again.
Such a silly thing to happen, if I could disable that button from working I would. Very ironic that the feature invented to stop an accidental press of the Windows key during the game has itself become another key to accidentally press and cause more confusion. I would think a physical switch would be a better option but it would probably cost more to produce.
Anyway, thank you @joekamprad and @xircon for helping me out.
Did something similar, function lock is fn+esc, next to mute (fn+F1), took me a while to spot the tiny LED on the esc key 
Yikes, some of these things could probably be designed better!
This topic was automatically closed 2 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.