Keyboard shortcuts inconsistent across tabs, and not functioning within notebooks

[gkiar]

Description

I used to use Jupyter regularly, and relied on common keyboard shortcuts, such as 0 0, A, B, and of course Enter and Esc to jump between command and edit modes. In this recent installation of Jupyter, these keyboard shortcuts no longer work, despite appearing in the server-level keyboard shortcut list (screenshot 1). They don't appear in the within-notebook keyboard shortcut menu, aside from Ctrl+Enter (screenshot 2), and aside from Ctrl+Enter for running cells, none of these shortcuts work, despite being listed and referenced at other menus in the notebook (screenshot 3)... Thanks for your help!

Reproduce

$ pip install jupyter
$ pip show jupyter
Name: jupyter
Version: 1.0.0
Summary: Jupyter metapackage. Install all the Jupyter components in one go.
Home-page: http://jupyter.org
Author: Jupyter Development Team
Author-email: [email protected]
License: BSD
Location: /home/gkiar/env/gp311/lib/python3.11/site-packages
Requires: ipykernel, ipywidgets, jupyter-console, nbconvert, notebook, qtconsole
Required-by:
$ jupyter-notebook --no-browser

Expected behavior

That the keyboard shortcuts work.

Context

• Operating System and version: Windows 11, WSL2 running Ubuntu 20.04
• Browser and version: Chrome
• Jupyter Notebook version:

$ jupyter --version
Selected Jupyter core packages...
IPython          : 8.21.0
ipykernel        : 6.29.0
ipywidgets       : 8.1.1
jupyter_client   : 8.6.0
jupyter_core     : 5.7.1
jupyter_server   : 2.12.5
jupyterlab       : 4.1.0
nbclient         : 0.9.0
nbconvert        : 7.14.2
nbformat         : 5.9.2
notebook         : 7.0.7
qtconsole        : 5.5.1
traitlets        : 5.14.1

Troubleshoot Output

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Command Line Output

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Browser Output

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[avloss]

I can confirm this issue. It's really strange, but it feels like it was "working fine just yesterday" for me. And I'm not sure what has changed. I had "notebook=7.0.7" and keys were working fine. Now suddenly they've stopped working. I've tried few things, including previous versions of 7.x. Nothing helped. Downgrading to 6.5.6 resolved the issue.
So, this is definitely NOT something that happens consistently. Very interesting that I've started experiencing this issue TODAY. Almost as if this is dependent on some external factor.

[mobilarte]

I can also confirm this: working in JupyterLab, but not working in Notebook. Tried version 7.0.6 -> 7.1.0b0, fresh install of everything (including deleting .jupyter). I miss "A"!

[PetrGlad]

I have the same problem. Using jupyter lab instead for now. The shortcuts seem to still work there.

[jtpio]

Thanks all for the report.

Wondering if this could be related to the recent JupyterLab 4.1.0 release, which may have introduced some incompatibility with the Notebook settings (in particular the keyboard shortcuts).

As a temporary workaround, does downgrading to the previous JupyterLab version (with pip install "jupyterlab<4.1.0") help fix the issue?

[mobilarte]

After updating to notebook 7.0.8, shortcuts are displayed in the menu and are working again. The downgrade of jupyterlab seems to fix it. Thanks!

[arnaud-feldmann]

Thanks all for the report.

Wondering if this could be related to the recent JupyterLab 4.1.0 release, which may have introduced some incompatibility with the Notebook settings (in particular the keyboard shortcuts).

As a temporary workaround, does downgrading to the previous JupyterLab version (with pip install "jupyterlab<4.1.0") help fix the issue?

Had the same thing in arch, with package jupyter-notebook 7.0.7-1 within pacman, after an update of jupyterlab to 4.1.0-1.
Downgraded to jupyterlab 4.0.12-1 and it works again. So that must be it. I'll wait until notebook 7.0.8 to be on the repo.
Thanks

[jeromekelleher]

Also hit this issue, and downgrading to jupyterlab 4.0.12 fixed the problem.

[takluyver]

Am I right in thinking that no notebook package 7.1 or above has this problem?

If I've understood correctly, notebook 7.0.7 packages were built with jupyterlab 4.0.11 frontend code, but then the Python package metadata says it's compatible with any notebook 4.x. Newer versions of notebook are more specific in the version of jupyterlab they declare compatibility with (#7250). Given the experiences people describe above and the changes in shortcut handling in jupyterlab 4.1 (jupyterlab/jupyterlab#14115), it seems likely that this was the cause of this issue.

I have just tried with notebook==7.1.3 (leaving jupyterlab at 4.1.0, although the package metadata says that's not compatible with 7.1.3), and the shortcuts are working again.