I don't know how I did this, but somehow today the action search shortcut had vanished from my earlier versions of Scribus. For reasons (need to update linux mint) I have 1.5.8 installed but also have 1.6.4 and 1.7.2 as appimages. I've been alternating between them to test the new user interface.
What is confusing is that I don't think I can have accidentally deleted the action search shortcut myself, since it's not available in the Preferences > Keyboard Shortcut window at all. I'd meant to file a bug report that you can't customize the shortcut for that command since it doesn't appear in the list.
I managed to locate the Scribus150.rc document with the user profile and sure enough there's a line that says:
<Shortcut KeySequence="" Action="helpActionSearch"/>
Where in the Scribus170.rc it says:
<Shortcut KeySequence="Ctrl+/" Action="helpActionSearch"/>
I'd noticed a bunch of my other keyboard shortcuts I always use had disappeared as well, but I'd assumed maybe I'd erased them myself by accident. Presumably I can edit the line in the rc file to get my action search shortcut back but I'm baffled how it disappeared in the first place.
Sounds like your config file isnt getting updated like it should. Without scribus running, rename the the config file. Then restart scribus and let it rebuild the .rc file. Exit scribus and edit the file to update the shortcut, and save. then start scribus again and see if the shortcut is there.
Let us know if this works or not.
Changing the name and relaunching Scribus works to make a new preferences template & that template seems to retain new keyboard shortcuts I add. I pulled up a file difference checker to see what was different and it appears that if I generate the .rc file in the 1.6.4 appimage vs the 1.5.8 I have installed a lot of the components are in slightly different orders.
I wonder if that's what confused it - I'd been pulling up 1.6.4 to test a script I was writing that needed scripter commands that weren't in my installed version. But I tested alternating back and forth just now and it didn't seem to cause any issues with shortcuts disappearing. It's also possible that the original .rc file was from a very long time ago and had gotten corrupted somewhere along the way through various computer upgrades.
Regardless, thanks for the tip, everything seems to work now. I'll set up my preferences again so it saves to the new file.