Fn Key / Media Keys Broken in Arch

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

Newbie on Arch, and I’m having a weird issue where the medias key and the Fn key randomly stops working. I’m talking about wev/xev not detecting the Fn key at all, unable to Fn Lock using Fn+Esc, and pressing the function keys up top only returns F1, F2… instead of XF64AudioPlay and things of sort.

Weirdest part is, after randomly restarting a couple times, this issue fixes itself. Then, when rebooting again, it happens again. No idea what’s going on, let me know what logs I need to paste here!

Last did a system update today. Using the Arch Kernel, no clue which BIOS version I’m using but running the 13th Gen Intel Framework 13.

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I experienced a similar issue a few days back and it even persisted after rebooting. I did restart the embedded-controller by switching it off holding the power button until the power-LED blinks, that fixed the issue and it hasn’t come back since. I’m using Fedora 40 tho.

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This is known old issue which has been resolved in recent kernels. Could be regression that only trigger in certain odd circumstances?
Regardless, workaround should still be the same as before.

Create the following file in arch and reboot.

/etc/modprobe.d/framework-als-deactivate.conf

blacklist hid_sensor_hub
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This is fixed in kernel 6.11, and is unrelated to the sensor hub[1].

Patch: [v3,0/5] platform/chrome: Fix MEC concurrency problems for Framework Laptop - Patchwork

  1. the differential diagnostic is whether F1 is broken. If it is, the problem is not related to the HID device being claimed by the hub driver. If F1 works but only the brightness and airplane keys are broken, that is due to the sensor hub driver. ↩︎

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For me it is no option to switch to Kernel 6.11, because ZFS doesnt support it yet. Is there anything I can do to get my Media Key functionality back, if it has nothing to do with the sensor hub?
(KDE Neon 24.04, Kernel 6.6.48, OpenZFS 2.2.2, Framework 16)

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I blacklisted the cros_ec_lpc kernel module and that fixed it for me. I haven’t noticed any side effects from doing that.

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Ok, thanks, I’ll give that a try but opened a seperate topic myself, just in case

Edit: This didnt change anything for me, unfortunately :frowning:
I’ll try the sensor hub nevertheless, but doubt that will change sth

Edit2: Blacklisting sensor hub (and rebooting) didnt change anything either.
Just checked the keys in QMK and they are fine. Other functions work on those keys, just not the media and brightness control.

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Just as a note: this topic is in the Framework Laptop 13 section. You are probably experiencing a very, very different problem than the ones documented herein if you have a Laptop 16.

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