fcitx does not work

[yaolet]

(1) Issue/Bug Description:

After the latest updating, fcitx stopped working.

(2) Steps to reproduce (if you know):

1. Fresh install a pop os from iso.
2. switch language to Chinese (zh_CN)
3. select fcitx as input
4. install an input method such as fcitx-sunpinyin / sogou pinyin (deb file only).
5. sudo apt update; sudo apt upgrade
6. sign out, sign in;
7. fcitx disappears

(3) Expected behavior:
fcitx should work as normal;

fcitx diagnostics show that GTK_IM_MODULE QT_IM_MODULE and XMODIFIER ends are all set to ibus.
manually setting them in the .xprofile would allow fcitx to run again, but not autostart when login. it is a temporary fix.

(4) Distribution (run cat /etc/os-release):

Pop!_OS 20.10

(5) Gnome Shell version:

38.1

(6) Pop Shell version (run apt policy pop-shell or provide the latest commit if building locally):
1.1.01607982311420.10~0fbf86c

(7) Where was Pop Shell installed from:
sudo apt upgrade

(8) Monitor Setup (2 x 1080p, 4K, Primary(Horizontal), Secondary(Vertical), etc):

2880x1800

(9) Other Installed/Enabled Extensions:
none

(10) Other Notes:

I have tried both on my working laptop and a fresh install, both failed.

[meierw]

Same here.

Also, one extra thing to add. In the fcitx configuration the entire list of input methods is empty.

Please fix this. 😢

[mmstick]

Anything wrong with using ibus-pinyin or ibus-sunpinyin?

[meierw]

I've tried using ibus-mozc in the past (and currently using it while waiting for this fix), and it has always been annoying. Due to one simple issue of always defaulting to the useless Direct Input mode (A), instead of Hiragana (あ).

Every workaround for this annoyance, which can be found on the web, is:

• hacky - making you locally rebuild your own package of ibus and conflicting with the publicly available packages
• conflicts with the shortcuts of other apps, if trying to use the mozc keyboard shortcut interface
• even if you get the mozc shortcuts to work it's still an extra shortcut press, after switching to mozc from another input method

fcitx didn't have any of these issues and allowed me to configure it easily, as well as commit the configuration to source control.

I gave IBus a solid try, since I genuinely did Not want to add another package on top of the base ones which come with Ubuntu/Pop-OS, and liked IBus integrates with Gnome. But functionally it simply failed me.

Fun-fact. If ibus-mozc just didn't default to Direct Input and instead defaulted to Hiragana (or let me configure it). It would definitely be my preferred choice.

[mmstick]

You can change the defaults in /etc/profile.d. Have you tried that?

[meierw]

No. Haven't tried that approach.
I see there are a bunch of scripts in this dir, but they aren't self explanatory.

[mmstick]

They're shell scripts executed in alphabetical order, so you can make a script that calls export GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx to change it system-wide for GTK.

[meierw]

Didn't work. Here's how my current /etc/profile.d looks like.
I copied pop-im-ibus.sh to x-pop-im-fcitx.sh, modified the content and rebooted the machine.

 /e/profile.d  pwd
/etc/profile.d
 /e/profile.d  ls -alF
total 60
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Dec 17 14:48 ./
drwxr-xr-x 147 root root 12288 Dec 17 09:45 ../
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    96 Sep 16 22:26 01-locale-fix.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   833 Nov 20 01:51 apps-bin-path.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   726 Sep  3 05:44 bash_completion.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1003 Aug 13  2019 cedilla-portuguese.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   813 Aug 25 23:57 flatpak.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   349 Jul 30 00:59 im-config_wayland.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    84 Dec 15 07:12 pop-im-ibus.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1368 Sep 23 03:37 vte-2.91.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   966 Sep 23 03:37 vte.csh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   954 Sep 17 20:23 xdg_dirs_desktop_session.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    87 Dec 17 14:50 x-pop-im-fcitx.sh
 /e/profile.d  cat pop-im-ibus.sh 
export GTK_IM_MODULE="ibus"
export QT_IM_MODULE="ibus"
export XMODIFIERS="@im=ibus"
 /e/profile.d  cat x-pop-im-fcitx.sh 
export GTK_IM_MODULE="fcitx"
export QT_IM_MODULE="fcitx"
export XMODIFIERS="@im=fcitx"
 /e/profile.d  

As I mentioned before, the list of Input Methods in fcitx configuration is now empty (even after a full purge and reinstall of fcitx).
So my best, albeit uninformed guess, is that some low level dependency has changed and broken fcitx. The wiring between GTK and fcitx probably isn't the issue here...? 😕

[mmstick]

The only recent update was setting GTK_IM_MODULE back to ibus as the default module as it was in 20.04. The fcitx packages come from Ubuntu and I doubt they've changed recently.

[yaolet]

my issue is, before the update, the default ibus could be changed by gnome-language-selector into fcitx, like ubuntu 20.10 and other variants. , but after the update, even it sets to fcitx, the shell starts ibus regardless, disrepecting this configuration... im-config does not work, even I set GTK_IM_MODULE etc into fcitx, ibus daemon still runs.....

[yaolet]

thanks mmstick for the advice. Of course I can still manage by doing small tweaks so that fcitx can run. but this problem exists on a fresh-installed system base. An end user should not get his/her desired input method by jumping hoops. using gnome-language-selector should work as expected, but now it is not.

[wychuzord]

Didn't work. Here's how my current /etc/profile.d looks like.
I copied pop-im-ibus.sh to x-pop-im-fcitx.sh, modified the content and rebooted the machine.

 /e/profile.d  pwd
/etc/profile.d
 /e/profile.d  ls -alF
total 60
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Dec 17 14:48 ./
drwxr-xr-x 147 root root 12288 Dec 17 09:45 ../
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    96 Sep 16 22:26 01-locale-fix.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   833 Nov 20 01:51 apps-bin-path.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   726 Sep  3 05:44 bash_completion.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1003 Aug 13  2019 cedilla-portuguese.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   813 Aug 25 23:57 flatpak.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   349 Jul 30 00:59 im-config_wayland.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    84 Dec 15 07:12 pop-im-ibus.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1368 Sep 23 03:37 vte-2.91.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   966 Sep 23 03:37 vte.csh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   954 Sep 17 20:23 xdg_dirs_desktop_session.sh
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    87 Dec 17 14:50 x-pop-im-fcitx.sh
 /e/profile.d  cat pop-im-ibus.sh 
export GTK_IM_MODULE="ibus"
export QT_IM_MODULE="ibus"
export XMODIFIERS="@im=ibus"
 /e/profile.d  cat x-pop-im-fcitx.sh 
export GTK_IM_MODULE="fcitx"
export QT_IM_MODULE="fcitx"
export XMODIFIERS="@im=fcitx"
 /e/profile.d  

As I mentioned before, the list of Input Methods in fcitx configuration is now empty (even after a full purge and reinstall of fcitx).
So my best, albeit uninformed guess, is that some low level dependency has changed and broken fcitx. The wiring between GTK and fcitx probably isn't the issue here...? confused

I've managed to add input methods to fcitx after killing ibus and starting fcitx manually, however I still couldn't switch between them or rather the input method was indicated to be Japanese in GUI but actually was my default input method.
I didn't see any visual indication of input mode switching either.

[wychuzord]

Anything wrong with using ibus-pinyin or ibus-sunpinyin?

Don't know about Chinese but Japanese in ibus is very cumbersome because it's in Latin alphabet by default and I haven't been able to find any way to switch it into hiragana with a keyboard shortcut.
It doesn't sound as much but having to do it so many times it gets on your nerves and that's why I've installed Fcitx and used it without a problem until few days ago.

[miaodi]

still no updates?

[LumenYoung]

They're shell scripts executed in alphabetical order, so you can make a script that calls export GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx to change it system-wide for GTK.

Yes, there are some issue with the ibus pinyin. I'm not sure the cause but the key mapping of Pinying IM would be the key mapping of the previous input. For example, I use English, German and Chinese in my daily life. German input is different from English in key y and z(in german keyboard they switched position). When I use the german input first and switch to the pinyin, then the y and z has been changed in to German style. It is very uncomfortable since most of the Chinese would use only the English keyboard layout, and it is inconvinient because the same input method would vary because the previous used langague.

I wonder if is problem has been raised to you before. Hope you can see that.