AutoKey inserts blank lines

Question

Situation

• GNOME Shell
• AutoKey / autokey-gtk
• it has a predefined shortcut "adr" which should write an address after hitting space
• and a shortcut "date" which should write the current date (after hitting tab)

Problem

• no matter what I define, "adr" or "date" it always inserts as much blank lines as the template uses

Example:

• "date" should autocomplete after pressing space to "13/08/01" but it inserts one empty line
• "adr" should do my full address but it inserts 4 empty lines

Question

What could be wrong with my AutoKey? Do you need additional information?

Answer 1

Solution for me (running Xubuntu 14.04) was to provide a .service file in/usr/share/dbus-1/services.

• First I deleted all the example files and scripts, and created a new file. (This was on a fresh install of AutoKey.)
• Then I created an empty file org.autokey.Service under /usr/share/dbus-1/services

• In the org.autokey.Service file I put the following text:

  [D-BUS Service] 
  Name=org.autokey.Service 
  Exec=/usr/bin/autokey</code>
  

• Then I killed AutoKey via the taskmanager (AK already hang), and restarted AutoKey

• Tested it, and it works. No more blank lines. Text gets replaced like it should.

(I did not test the script functionality of AutoKey)

Answer 2

Since I came across this when googling: I had the original problem with Ubuntu 18.04 too, but thankfully the original answer still worked for me 5 years later.

Create a new .Service file by typing touch /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.autokey.Service and open it in an editor such as nano by typing sudo nano /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.autokey.Service. Copy the lines provided by Dex:

[D-BUS Service] 
Name=org.autokey.Service 
Exec=/usr/bin/autokey

Restart Autokey and you're done.