Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS: Multimedia keys stopped working after updates
Hello,
I'm running Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS with the default GNOME desktop environment and a few days ago my multimedia keys (play/pause, next, previous) suddenly stopped working. Whenever I press one of them, GNOME just shows the "blocked" icon.
The only thing that changed around the time it broke was installing the latest Ubuntu updates. I haven't changed my configuration otherwise.
The application I'm trying to control is TIDAL-HIFI, installed via Flatpak. I've been using the same version for about two months and the media keys worked fine until a few of days ago.
Things I've checked so far:
* The keyboard keys themselves work (multimedia buttons work on e.g. VLC Media Player)
* Tried killing the process `gsd-media-keys` and starting it manually, and I get:
```
Failed to grab accelerator for keybinding settings:screensaver
Failed to grab accelerator for keybinding settings:playback-random
Failed to grab accelerator for keybinding settings:hibernate
Failed to grab accelerator for keybinding settings:playback-repeat
```
Has anyone experienced anything similar? Somethings seems to be hogging the multimedia keybindings or something of that nature.
Posted Jun 27, 2026, 10:37 AM UTC