Global Hotkey with X11/Xlib

Your program works here. My guess is you have another modifier active, such as NumLock. GrabKey only works on the exact modifier mask.

For example here is some (GPL) code from metacity window manager

/* Grab/ungrab, ignoring all annoying modifiers like NumLock etc. */
static void
meta_change_keygrab (MetaDisplay *display,
                     Window       xwindow,
                     gboolean     grab,
                     int          keysym,
                     unsigned int keycode,
                     int          modmask)
{
  unsigned int ignored_mask;

  /* Grab keycode/modmask, together with
   * all combinations of ignored modifiers.
   * X provides no better way to do this.
   */

  meta_topic (META_DEBUG_KEYBINDINGS,
              "%s keybinding %s keycode %d mask 0x%x on 0x%lx\n",
              grab ? "Grabbing" : "Ungrabbing",
              keysym_name (keysym), keycode,
              modmask, xwindow);

  /* efficiency, avoid so many XSync() */
  meta_error_trap_push (display);

  ignored_mask = 0;
  while (ignored_mask <= display->ignored_modifier_mask)
    {
      if (ignored_mask & ~(display->ignored_modifier_mask))
        {
          /* Not a combination of ignored modifiers
           * (it contains some non-ignored modifiers)
           */
          ++ignored_mask;
          continue;
        }

      if (meta_is_debugging ())
        meta_error_trap_push_with_return (display);
      if (grab)
        XGrabKey (display->xdisplay, keycode,
                  modmask | ignored_mask,
                  xwindow,
                  True,
                  GrabModeAsync, GrabModeSync);
      else
        XUngrabKey (display->xdisplay, keycode,
                    modmask | ignored_mask,
                    xwindow);

      if (meta_is_debugging ())
        {
          int result;

          result = meta_error_trap_pop_with_return (display, FALSE);

          if (grab && result != Success)
            {      
              if (result == BadAccess)
                meta_warning (_("Some other program is already using the key %s with modifiers %x as a binding\n"), keysym_name (keysym), modmask | ignored_mask);
              else
                meta_topic (META_DEBUG_KEYBINDINGS,
                            "Failed to grab key %s with modifiers %x\n",
                            keysym_name (keysym), modmask | ignored_mask);
            }
        }

      ++ignored_mask;
    }

  meta_error_trap_pop (display, FALSE);
}