Focus is not on password field

[RalfJung]

After bootup, the focus is not on the user or password field. This is fairly annoying, it means I would have to use the mouse before logging in. ("would" because I actually switched to a different DM to avoid this bug.)

I tried the themes: circles, elarun, maldives, maui. Breeze is not affected, it seems to contain some special code to focus the password (see https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=337079).

[RalfJung]

This is possibly related to #514, however, I only have a single screen and still see this bug,

[AlfredoRamos]

It's fixed on the master branch, see #602

It has been a issue for a while so some themes were patched.

[RalfJung]

I'm using SDDM from Debian testing, so I guess that patch did not land there yet.

[Musikolo]

I'm also suffering this issue for over a year, and I'm still waiting patiently for a solution. The issue is occurring in both my desktop PC and my laptop. Both are running Arch Linux and are 100% up-to-date. I have KDE (5.7.0) in both as my only window manager. I have a single monitor/screen in both.

I was following up the related issues shown below in hopes of getting a solution, but it never came, not at least to me:

• #501
• #514
• #573
• #602

I'm happy with SDDM overall, but this issue, man, is horribly annoying. When is it expected to get solved once for all?

I would be more than happy to help sort it out, so if there is anything I can do, just let me know.

Thank you!

[Musikolo]

I've tried using the sddm-git package and it's working now. I don't understand why a new version is not released yet, so that there is no need to build a package against the latest version of the repo. There is already a pretty interesting bunch of features in future version 0.14.0 to do so.

Thank you all for the good job! ;-)

[klawdhfzasjhaa]

I'm on sddm 0.14.0-5.1 (Breeze Theme for OpenSUSE) and also have this bug. I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed 20170426-1.1.

Is there some piece of config, I am missing or is the bug still / again present?

[klawdhfzasjhaa]

With version 0.14.0-6.1 it's fixed. Yeeha! :) EDIT: Little restriction: It only works on the laptop screen. With an external screen attached, it still does not work. :( EDIT2: With an external screen attached, the cursor does not blink, but you can fill in the Password "blind" and hit enter to login.

[kreuzschnabel]

Same issue for me here, running Debian Stretch + KDE 5.8.6 64bit on a Lenovo Thinkpad, with external display attached.

I’d love to pick the user (and password entry field) by the keyboard, so I won’t need the mouse at all to log in, but there seems to be no way.

--ks

[Musikolo]

@kreuzschnabel, the issue was solved for me since I updated to version 0.14.0 of sddm. I'm using ArchLinux + KDE 5.10.4 64bit.

I hope it helps!

[simgunz]

This still happen to me on sddm 0.17 on a freshly installed Manjaro with KDE. The theme used is breath.

As mentioned by others, typing the password and hitting Enter allows to login even though there is no focus on the password field and the black bullets are not shown.

[Musikolo]

@simgunz see to believe, yes, if you type in your credentials, it works exactly as you described. I wasn't aware of this behavior!

[nyanpasu64]

Still having this bug (no visual password focus, but typing blind works) on sddm 0.17.0-1ubuntu7 on kubuntu 18.04.

[zaulychny]

Still having this bug (no visual password focus, but typing blind works) on sddm 0.17.0-1ubuntu7 on kubuntu 18.04.

Similar issue on fresh install of Kubuntu 18.04 LTS :( ... As I found it is caused by switching to "Breeze text only" theme! If I go back to "Breeze" theme it works fine on dual monitors

[nyanpasu64]

Are you using dual monitors? I noticed that SDDM places identical-looking but distinct login screens on both displays. Only my laptop screen is focused. and password dots only appear there (not on my external desktop).

[zaulychny]

It does not matter (i.e. same effect if I connect 2nd monitor)... Problem is that mentioned theme causes no focus and typing blind does not work..

[cuzrawr]

Same issue when external monitor connected. Params: Arch, Xfce, sddm;

[MatheusR42]

Same issue when external monitor connected.

Kubuntu 20

[LudSkywalker]

In my case, an solution to fix the problem is search in de main.qml or login.qml in which part are located the form or the input for the password, and in this put the property focus:primaryScreen, this make than you can put your password, press enter and login, but you can't see the password field changing(this because in dual monitor the screen by default is not the primary), in the case of you are using lubuntu with they default theme, just replace "focus:true" to "focus:primaryScreen" at the line 130 in Main.qml located in /usr/share/sddm/themes/lubuntu/

[pinonpierre]

Please, the issue existed for too long

[nekromoff]

Still not focused on startup Description: KDE neon User - 5.24 Release: 20.04

[redtide]

I'm currently using a git version in Archlinux (0.19.0.115.gbfdb514-1), and it seems that the focus is apparently not on the password field (not as if clicked on it: no cursor or highlighted), but if I write the password and hit enter it works.

[Binly42]

Same here

env: Debian Bullseye stable KDE （LG gram13z990)

Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 11
KDE Plasma Version: 5.20.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.78.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2
Kernel Version: 5.10.0-21-amd64
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i5-8265U CPU @ 1.60GHz
Memory: 23.2 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® UHD Graphics 620

---

(If not a coincidence) I got this after I installed scrcpy (just now).

• After the apt installation finished, I agreed to restart something of sddm
  • sadly I should have be more careful ... and sorry I do not remember what the something was ...
    • because a very similar restart request just happened yesterday when I installed something else (may be install guiscrcpy with flatpak?), and there seemed be nothing unusual after I agreed to restart)
• and then the system directly logout and login.
• and then this symptom appeared ...

Before, it was all well (my last login was last week).

PS: I have another old computer (Clevo W670SB, same this OS) a few months ago this symptom, and I did install scrcpy on that computer before. So I have noticed this time...

[acruise]

This happens to me because I have multiple monitors, and sddm doesn't know I want them to be mirrored, because I rarely use the other one... When I boot up, the password field on what I consider my main monitor isn't focused, but if I turn on the other monitor, the password field is focused over there.

As an annoying workaround, you can just go ahead and type your password and hit Enter, you'll be interacting with the "wrong" monitor, which in my case isn't normally visible.

[Musikolo]

I tried to debug and understand the underlying issue. I thought it was an issue with the QML code, not placing the focus on the right element, but after a lot of trial and error, my understanding is the issue is on sddm itself. When I boot up my laptop with one or more external monitors plugged in, I get none of the screens getting the focus. Before touching any key or anything else, if I unplug my external monitor, sddm finds the single (built-in) screen I have in my laptop and it's capable of placing the focus on the password field as expect. If plug in back my external monitor, the focus disappears again. You can plug & unplug your external monitor as many times as you want, and you'll see that it places the focus in the right screen when there is a single screen, and it disappears when there multiple ones. This behavior consistently repeats with my 3 laptops.

I hope this helps find the root cause and a solution is finally implemented!

Thanks.

[Vogtinator]

The issue is that sddm uses Xorg and there's no window manager running, so focus handling between windows is practically nonexistent. It might be possible to handle it in sddm-greeter somewhat by actively assigning focus to a specific display.

[piotr-dobrogost]

Is the situation any better when sddm uses wayland instead of xorg?

[Musikolo]

Believe it or not, after upgrading from xorg-server-21.1.8-1 to xorg-server-21.1.8-2 in Arch Linux, the focus issue is gone. The same happened in my 2 laptops. I'm not sure about the actual change that solved it, but that's only graphic package I upgraded that could explain this.

Did anyone else notice anything? :thinking:

[mirh]

You can easily try to downgrade it and see if the problem comes back.

[redtide]

Did anyone else notice anything? thinking

@Musikolo yes, after a recent update the focus was working, but I'm not sure if that would also on a multi monitor configuration.

[Musikolo]

@redtide , yes, sorry, I meant in a multi monitor configuration (built-in: 1920x1080 + external: 1920x1080). With a single monitor (built-in screen), it has always worked well for me. The change I noticed today is when attaching an external monitor.

@mirh , I tried downgrading a few packages of my last system upgrade: xorg-server, xorg-server-common, mesa and wayland, but unfortunately the focus issue was still working well. Every other upgraded package seems unrelated to me. It might be the case that the issue was fixed earlier and I didn't pay attention close enough to notice the difference. I wish I could isolate the change that made it work.