Keyboard input sometimes stops working after a while

[ratrun@…]

Since about a quarter of a year I repeatedly have to restart JOSM because out of the blue all keyboard inputs get ignored. This happens to me about every maybe fourth editing session. Mouse input still works fine. Keyboard inputs do work perfectly fine in other applications.

The only way to recover from this situation is to perform a restart of JOSM. I never noticed this in my second JOSM session, but this only might be because then I'm done with my work in JOSM. I always completely shut down the system when I'm completely done and start it from scratch for the next time.

What I did so far:
1) Start JOSM from command line and watch the terminal output. There are no errors shown. When moving around with the mouse, the http logs for fetching bing/ESRI image data get still shown.
2) Test if the keyboard inputs work in other applications. Result: Yes, its perfectly fine
3) Watch /var/log/syslog
4) Watch dmesg
5) I could not find any pattern yet what triggers this bug

What possibilities do I have to provide further information when this happens the next time?

I'm using JOSM since about 2008. I never faced this issue back in the time when I was on Windows 10 on other hardware.

I'm on Linux Mint 22.1 Cinnamon Edition now.

Please provide any additional information below. Attach a screenshot if possible.

Relative:URL: ^/trunk
Repository:UUID: 0c6e7542-c601-0410-84e7-c038aed88b3b
Last:Changed Date: 2025-05-01 13:38:02 +0200 (Thu, 01 May 2025)
Revision:19396
Build-Date:2025-05-02 01:30:34
URL:https://josm.openstreetmap.de/svn/trunk

Identification: JOSM/1.5 (19396 de) Linux Mint 22.1
Memory Usage: 672 MB / 94848 MB (517 MB allocated, but free)
Java version: 21.0.7+6-Ubuntu-0ubuntu124.04, Ubuntu, OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM
Look and Feel: javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel
Screen: :0.0 1920x1200x[Multi depth]@60Hz (scaling 1.00×1.00)
Maximum Screen Size: 1920×1200
Best cursor sizes: 16×16→16×16, 32×32→32×32
Environment variable LANG: de_AT.UTF-8
System property file.encoding: UTF-8
System property sun.jnu.encoding: UTF-8
Locale info: de_AT
Numbers with default locale: 1234567890 -> 1234567890
Desktop environment: X-Cinnamon
Java package: openjdk-21-jre:amd64-21.0.7+6~us1-0ubuntu1~24.04
libcommons-compress-java: libcommons-compress-java:all-1.25.0-1
libcommons-logging-java: libcommons-logging-java:all-1.3.0-1ubuntu1
fonts-noto: fonts-noto:all-20201225-2
VM arguments: [--module-path=/usr/share/openjfx/lib, --add-modules=java.scripting,java.sql,javafx.controls,javafx.media,javafx.swing,javafx.web, -Djosm.restart=true, -Djava.net.useSystemProxies=true, -XX:MaxRAMPercentage=75.0, --add-exports=java.base/sun.security.action=ALL-UNNAMED, --add-exports=java.desktop/com.sun.imageio.plugins.jpeg=ALL-UNNAMED, --add-exports=java.desktop/com.sun.imageio.spi=ALL-UNNAMED]

Plugins:
+ Mapillary (1792)
+ apache-commons (36438)
+ pbf (36438)
+ reverter (36438)

[stoecker]

This is very likely a Java bug, as JOSM typically does not usually influence keyboard input.

You could try updating (or downgrading) Java and see if the issue is gone.

[ratrun@…]

Thank you, I switched to openjdk 24.0.1 and will see if this fixes the issue.

[GerdP]

This problem is reported from time to time but nobody seems to be able to reproduce.
See e.g. #13160 or #22164 or #22247
I think there is a trick which sometimes revives the keyboard, but I can't find it. Might still be in one of those tickets.

[ratrun <ratrun@…>]

The problem still happens with JRE version 24.0.1. It doesn't seem to happen that frequently, but I had it three times in the meantime.

[bxl-forever]

The hack to revive the keyboard is as follows:

In the "Relations" pane, click on the "+" button to add a new relation and try to add new tags there. Opening this dialog is enough to get the keyboard to work normally.

Edit > Preferences > Advanced Preferences also gets you to a dialog containing text fields, and this will revive the keyboard input too.