System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

Joel · 2016-09-01 19:00:53

Hi!

I have a fully updated system. Recently I noticed when I hit the key on left of backspace (the one " ¿ " with and " ¡ ") the systems freeze. No input can be generated. I have to use Alt+F2 to switch to terminal and reboot. I'm posting my keyboard if that helps.
I have the following variables declared in my xinitrc:

export LC_ALL=es_MX.UTF-8
export LANGUAGE=es_MX

And I used this command to set the locale language in terminal:

localectl set-x11-keymap es

http://i63.tinypic.com/33nji4n.jpg
any idea?

Last edited by jasonwryan (2016-09-01 19:02:32)

jasonwryan · 2016-09-01 19:03:46

Read the Code of Conduct and only post thumbnails http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cod … s_and_code

and look at the journal and Xorg logs for the frozen sessions to see what is going on.

wfleming · 2016-09-04 01:52:03

I'm experiencing similar symptoms: when I hit the "Fn" key on my keyboard, X (or maybe more properly my window manager) appears to hang until I kill it from another TTY.

Interestingly, I can still type & interact with whatever my focused window is. I.e. if I'm in a terminal I can still use the terminal, if I'm in a Chrome window I can still use Chrome normally. What I *can't* do is switch windows or workspaces or quit my window manager in the normal way. This is also affecting two different window managers: I was using dwm, but have been recently playing with XMonad.

I've watched `tail -f ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log` and `journalctl -xf` while making this happen, and neither of them outputs any new messages when "Fn" is pressed and the WM stops taking input. I don't see anything helpful in them at other times either, but maybe I don't know what to look for: I've uploaded them to a gist here https://gist.github.com/wfleming/22b6f6 … 492f209c50

A possibly random bit of information that may or may not be at all helpful/relevant: I ran `showkey` in a TTY and it reported the Fn key's keycode as 143. I was a bit surprised by this, since I thought Fn normally didn't emit a keycode by itself without being pressed in conjunction with another key. I also looked at `xmodmap -pk` out of curiosity, and that listed keycode 143 as XF86Paste.

My locale info is en_US.UTF-8 across the board.

Any help pointing me towards next steps to dig into for debugging this would be much appreciated, thanks.

EDIT: I just stumbled on what seems like an important detail: after pressing Fn and putting my window manager in this bad state, running `ps aux | grep xmonad` shows xmonad with status T ("stopped by job control signal"). Running `pkill -CONT xmonad` allows xmonad to start working again, which is great since I can recover when this happens without killing my session. I'd still like to get this fixed so I can use my media keys and not have to send signals to my window manager when I accidentally brush a key, but this at least points to what's happening. So I guess my remaining question is why pressing Fn is causing my window manager to receive SIGSTOP.

Last edited by wfleming (2016-09-04 02:23:15)

iipe · 2016-09-09 20:54:13

I have the same issue. I use Xmonad and yesterday I updated my system after a few weeks without updating, and started having this issue. My locale is en_GB.UTF-8. Xmobar, the status bar I use, updates normally but I cannot interact with any of the windows.

I don't even have to press Fn button for this to happen. Today I tried to send an app to another workspace and the system froze. It also freezes if I try to enable an external display. This happened on my work laptop which is Lenovo T460p with combined Intel/Nvidia graphics. I have to check the logs if there is anything useful.

I hope the CONT signal resurrects the system until the issue gets fixed. I can swap to another VT and still interact with the system.

Maybe it is time to check out BSPWM as I have intended for some time.

FelledTreeNo9 · 2016-09-10 07:34:59

I've just had this problem maybe; I'm using XFCE, on a desktop machine and after my latest system upgrade the graphical session froze whenever I pressed one of the special media keys (internet, mail, volume up/down etc) on my keyboard.

I fixed my issue by following a suggestion from this thread - specifically, to replace files in /etc/pam.d with their newer .pacnew versions where present (I just had systemd-user.pacnew). If that doesn't help then perhaps some of the other ideas in that thread might.

wfleming · 2016-09-21 01:44:21

My /etc/pam.d files were already up to date, but in my case I did eventually trace this back to something with dbus. I had a vestigial `eval $(dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session)` line in my .xinitrc (to address https://github.com/knopwob/dunst/issues/238). I removed that, and I'm no longer having this issue.

Best guess at the commonality between our cases was something about the user-session dbus ENV.

iipe · 2016-09-21 07:40:21

wfleming wrote:

My /etc/pam.d files were already up to date, but in my case I did eventually trace this back to something with dbus. I had a vestigial `eval $(dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session)` line in my .xinitrc (to address https://github.com/knopwob/dunst/issues/238). I removed that, and I'm no longer having this issue.
Best guess at the commonality between our cases was something about the user-session dbus ENV.

Thanks for mentioning this.

I was launching my xmonad with "exec dbus-launch --exit-with-session xmonad". I replaced it with "exec xmonad" and the issue is gone.

Here is another thread related to the same issue.

pacorrop · 2016-12-05 14:28:55

FelledTreeNo9 wrote:

I've just had this problem maybe; I'm using XFCE, on a desktop machine and after my latest system upgrade the graphical session froze whenever I pressed one of the special media keys (internet, mail, volume up/down etc) on my keyboard.
I fixed my issue by following a suggestion from this thread - specifically, to replace files in /etc/pam.d with their newer .pacnew versions where present (I just had systemd-user.pacnew). If that doesn't help then perhaps some of the other ideas in that thread might.

This solved my issue. Maybe a big dump, but just wanted to thank you for this

mtkaplanoglu · 2017-09-19 21:45:56

I had the same issue, xorg freeze when i type Turkish characters (ı,ş,ö,ç,ü). When i press one of the keys, mouse clicks doesnt work anymore, window manager shortkeys doesnt work anymore and only normal keyboard keys works on last active window.

So, i changed the keymap in "/etc/vconsole.conf to uk" and its working now. It may be useful for someone.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-09-01 19:00:53

System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

#2 2016-09-01 19:03:46

Re: System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

#3 2016-09-04 01:52:03

Re: System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

#4 2016-09-09 20:54:13

Re: System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

#5 2016-09-10 07:34:59

Re: System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

#6 2016-09-21 01:44:21

Re: System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

#7 2016-09-21 07:40:21

Re: System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

#8 2016-12-05 14:28:55

Re: System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

#9 2017-09-19 21:45:56

Re: System freeze when I try to use certain key on keyboard

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