OBS hotkeys won't work when OBS loses focus

Ubuntu Version:
Example: studio 25.10

Desktop Environment (if applicable):
Example: KDE Plasma

I am trying to set up ubuntu studio for the first time and I’m having an issue that I’ve had with other linux distros where hotkeys in OBS work fine, but once you click into another window or launch another application, OBS hotkeys no longer function. before I was able to solve this because I was using flatpak installs and could disable wayland windowed mode in flatseal but in ubuntu studio I’m using the pre-installed version of OBS and have even played around by installing the unofficial version through snap, both are behaving exactly the same.

I hope someone can get me going. also, I am not a linux guru, so breaking your explanations down barney style would be deeply appreciated.