Why isn't my keyboard's volume control working in KDE?!?!?

oreohive labs research log

Why isn't my keyboard's volume control working in KDE?!?!?

2025-03-20T16:48:00+0000
logged by:

oreo

I managed to fix the keyboard volume control issue by going to System Settings > Mouse & Touchpad > Mouse and re-enabling all the devices in the drop-down.

You're probably here because you can't seem to get volume control working from your keyboard in KDE Plasma.
I can't speak for what other circumstances this may occur in, or what other keyboards this may (or may not) happen with, but here, I'll discuss what fixed this for me in case it helps you.

- Packages -

In my search, I discovered that the following packages can help in ensuring the presence of this functionality:
plasma-pa (provides the volume control widget, handles multimedia key events relating to audio)
pipewire-pulse (lets this work if you're using pipewire)

- Eventual fix -

Despite installing / updating these packages, though, mashing Fn + , and Fn + . on my Wooting 60HE was still not controlling my system volume.

Curious, I remembered something. I had disabled, in System Settings > Mouse & Touchpad, all devices bar my actual, physical mouse.

In this drop-down, for me, there are five devices;

- my headset,
- my mouse,
- my mouse ('Keyboard'),
- my keyboard ('Mouse') and
- my keyboard ('Consumer Control').

I know.

At some point, I figured it reasonable to disable all the 'devices' here in the Mouse menu that weren't really mice, and disable the 'Keyboard' 'device' relating to my mouse.

However, it would appear that re-enabling the latter of my five devices, specifically my keyboard's 'Consumer Control' device, reinstated the functionality of controlling my system volume from my keyboard.

TL:DR; I went to System Settings > Mouse & Touchpad > Mouse, and enabled all the devices in the 'Device:' drop-down, including the two entries relating to my keyboard. This fixed the issue.

I hope I've saved you a reinstall, or helped you fix this issue! Please let me know if you have any more questions; I'll be here to help. :)

If this did help you, feel free to buy me a coffee to say thanks.