mozc selector GUI showing on top of gnome 3 GUI in latest focal packages

Thanks for your report!

The screenshot indicates that you encountered the issue when using Emacs and when Mozc is enabled in direct input mode.

* Does it happen with other applications but Emacs?

* What happens if you switch to e.g. Hiragana mode?

(I'm not able to reproduce the issue with gedit.)

Hello,

Actually, that appeared before Emacs was launched. I wasn't thinking about Emacs-specific IME interactions, but in this case that's not the case.

I'll try a few restarts of my system to see whether this is reproducible on my side; again, I saw it and just wanted to be especially proactive about filing since I felt I'd otherwise get sucked into other work and possibly forget about it.

The issue appears to be consistently reproducible on my system. I booted twice this morning, and it came up both times on top of where the Gnome menu is.

While I think I've probably adequately explained it, I did take a video during boot-up as well, just to avoid any ambiguity on what I'm seeing. I'll attach it shortly.

Thank you. Now it's crystal clear what you see. :)

I still have a couple of questions:

One thought is that one or more packages are missing on your focal installation. To make sure everything is there, can you please do:

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop

Does that possible make a difference?

Also, even if you didn't say it, I assume that it's ibus-mozc you are using. You aren't possibly using some other IM framework such as fcitx?

Can you please run this command:

env | grep -E 'XMOD|_IM'

and let us know what it outputs.

I did the apt commands you suggested, verbatim, then did a reboot. Unfortunately that did not resolve it.

It is ibus-mozc that is in use, to be clear.

Also, here's a pastebin of relevant "dpkg -l | grep <pattern>" queries: https://pastebin.ubuntu.com/p/hYFDYbyxhp/

And the environment output:

paul-goins@dell2018:~$ env | grep -E 'XMOD|_IM'
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
QT4_IM_MODULE=ibus
XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
CLUTTER_IM_MODULE=ibus
QT_IM_MODULE=ibus

Hope this helps, and of course, let me know if there's any other information I can provide.

One more thing, please: Can you create a new user account, log in as that user, and see if the issue is present also for that other user?

No, the issue is *not* present with a newly created user. ...I wonder what could be tripping this up on my account then...

Hello,

I have repaired this on my side.

It seems I had an ~/.xinputrc file present on my system, and this seems to interfere with how things currently run.
The ~/.xinputrc had this line: run_im ibus

I renamed it to ~/.xinputrc_bak and logged out and back into my account; now everything is working as expected again.

Pastebin w/ more context, for what it's worth: https://pastebin.ubuntu.com/p/9cJpFDwMV4/

i.e. I had run im-config at some time in the past, and it had set things up... but apparently that file is no longer appropriate for my setup.

I'm glad that the issue is gone for you. However, the solution makes me *really* surprised and a bit worried. AFAIK, and if ibus is installed, your ~/.xinputrc file shouldn't have made a difference at all.

A few more questions, if you don't mind:

Are you running Ubuntu on Xorg or Ubuntu on Wayland?

Can you please check the environment variables again now when you are running without that ~/.xinputrc file, i.e.:

env | grep -E 'XMOD|_IM'

Also, it would be valuable if you could create ~/.xinputrc again:

im-config -n ibus

and then relogin and check if that measure makes the issue re-emerge.

Certainly; I'm happy to provide more input.

"Are you running Ubuntu on Xorg or Ubuntu on Wayland?"

Ubuntu on Xorg. Just straight default Gnome 3 environment. I have installed other environments (e.g. i3), but I don't actively use them.

"Can you please check the environment variables [...]"

paul-goins@dell2018:~$ env | grep -E 'XMOD|_IM'
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
QT4_IM_MODULE=ibus
XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
CLUTTER_IM_MODULE=ibus
QT_IM_MODULE=ibus

"Also, it would be valuable if you could create ~/.xinputrc again"

Ran "im-config -n ibus" as directed. I'll update after I log back in later tonight.

Yes, the issue recurs after logging back in.

Thank you for the additional info. That's weird.

Anyway, considering that the issue was not present for the newly created user, one thing I would suggest that you try is to clean the mozc cache in $HOME for your real user account.

I.e.:

mv ~/.mozc ~/.mozc.bak

and relogin.

Does that possibly fix it irrespective of the presence of ~/.xinputrc ?

Hello,

This morning, interestingly enough, despite having renamed my .xinitrc to .xinitrc.bak, I ended up with the same glitch. It may be the issue is slightly intermittent and I had thought I had repaired it for myself, but in actuality I had not.

I'll try doing what you suggested; just a moment.

The issue did not occur after logging out and back in. I'll cycle through a few times to see if it recurs...

I just did 4 more logins, so that's 5 logins since moving ~/.mozc to ~/.mozc.bak.

First 4 logins: all good.
5th login: the issue recurred.

Thanks for your investigation! So the conclusion seems to be that it happens sometimes. I hate it when some error happens "sometimes". :(

I'm out of ideas right now. Let's keep this bug open and see if more ibus-mozc users report the same issue. In the meantime you may want to report it to Debian too.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.