Deeplink closes with wrong keymap on niri, causing keyboard malfunction

[rucnyz]

System information

• Version: v0.19.0 (643fbac)
• Build info: GCC 15.2.1 - Release
• Provenance: aur
• OS: Arch Linux -
• QT Platform: wayland
• DE: niri/Wayland

Describe the bug

After using vicinae deeplink 'vicinae://extensions/vicinae/clipboard/history', the
keyboard partially stops working - backspace and Ctrl+W don't work, but typing still works.
Clicking another window and back restores normal keyboard function.

To Reproduce

1. Open a terminal (kitty)
2. Run wev in another window to monitor keyboard events
3. run vicinae deeplink 'vicinae://extensions/vicinae/clipboard/history'
4. Select an item from clipboard history
5. Try pressing backspace or Ctrl+W in the terminal - they don't work
6. Click another window, then click back to terminal - keyboard works again

Expected behavior

Keyboard should work normally after vicinae closes.

Additional context

Using wev to debug:

• After vicinae closes: keymap: format: 1 (xkb v1), size: 1440 (wrong)
• After clicking another window: keymap: format: 1 (xkb v1), size: 34206 (correct)

It appears vicinae sends an incorrect/minimal keymap when closing its layer-shell surface
on niri.

[aurelleb]

If your default clipboard action is to paste, try changing it to 'copy' in the settings. I suspect this might be the cause of the keyboard malfunction.

[rucnyz]

@aurelleb Thanks for the suggestion! It does fix the keyboard issue, but it adds an extra step (need to Ctrl+V after selecting).
I'm curious is it a Vicinae bug or a niri/Wayland compositor issue? Would help to understand if this is something that can be fixed on the Vicinae side.

[aurelleb]

This is due to how vicinae implements the "paste" feature on wayland compositors like niri and hyprland, that is using the virtual-keyboard protocol. This protocol has a few downsides in general and it looks like there is something wrong with it on niri. I'm not too sure if it's me not using it correctly or niri having an issue to be honest, but it kinda works on Hyprland (minus a few protocol problems). I disabled paste support on niri in the recently released 0.19.1 until I can have a fix for it because paste has been completely broken for other users

I think the best fix for vicinae will be to create a new keyboard device using udev for this (and other) use cases.