lauhub commented 3 years ago

Context

I need to use Karabiner to modify some events for some apps, but it also change events that should not be modified.

Although there are some workarounds, they do not work for me because they lead to a deadlock using some applications (I can't type some characters I need like > or <).

Hardware and software

Software

macOS Mojave 10.14.6 (the issue was already present in previous versions)
Karabiner-Elements 12.10.0 (the issue was already present in previous versions)

Keyboard layout

I use a french keyboard layout (default for the system)

Hardware

I have two keyboards that work well :

an Apple internal keyboard (on a MBP 2015)
a wired Apple keyboard (with numpad)

Problem description

Target keys

The problem is with @ and < keys.

Expected behaviour

When Karabiner is off (or if I disable event modification for a keyboard) here is what I get when I press these keys:

Key	Event (Karabiner-EventViewer)	Result (displayed character)
`@`	`grave_accent_and_tilde`	`@`
Shift + `@`	`grave_accent_and_tilde` `flags:left_shift`	`#`
`<`	`non_us_backslash`	`<`
Shift + `<`	`non_us_backslash` `flags:left_shift`	`>`

Actual behaviour

The problem comes when I run Karabiner-Elements (the expected result should be the same displayed character as in the previous table):

Key	Event (Karabiner-EventViewer)	Result (displayed character)
`@`	`grave_accent_and_tilde`	`<`
Shift + `@`	`grave_accent_and_tilde` `flags:left_shift`	`>`
`<`	`non_us_backslash`	`@`
Shift + `<`	`non_us_backslash` `flags:left_shift`	`#`

Non-working workaround

I am aware that adding simple modification like this will solve the problem in most cases:

From Key	To Key
`grave_accent_and_tilde`	`non_us_backslash`
`non_us_backslash`	`grave_accent_and_tilde`

Deadlock

But this should not be necessary because Karabiner modifies the default behaviour although it is not needed.

I tried to reset entirely KE configuration files and the result is the same: default keyboard behaviour is modified.

As I use KE to generate the correct keys when I connect remotely to a Windows machine, it does not allow me to generate < and > characters when I press the < key, whatever the complex modification I use.

Proposed solution

Karabiner-Elements should not replace keys nor revert these keys unless explicitely defined by user. When it is ran, by default:

@ key should generate grave_accent_and_tilde event
< key should generate non_us_backslash event

michelschinz commented 2 years ago

For what it's worth, I have exactly the same issue with a MacBook equipped with a Swiss-French internal keyboard (which works fine) and an external Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (also Swiss-French mapping). That is, the external keyboard works normally as long as Karabiner-Elements is not run, but as soon as Karabiner-Elements is started, the keys grave_accent_and_tilde and non_us_backslash are swapped on that keyboard only (they still work normally on the internal keyboard).

I also use the workaround mentioned above, but I still think the issue should be solved as I'm pretty sure anyone with a similar setup runs into this, and diagnosing the problem takes quite some time.

Thank you!

giuliomoro commented 1 year ago

I have what I think is the same problem. On a macbook with EN/GB keyboard, simply enabling "modify events" without having any Simple or Complex modifications enabled on the internal keyboard swaps the behaviours of the `~ key with that of the §± key. Pretty annoying.