Keyboard stops working

Cerebral · 2005-10-23 00:29:43

Something I've been experiencing the last couple of weeks... not sure where to file this, so I'll throw it under "Newbie" questions.

Every now and again, I'll be in the middle of something, be it working in urxvt, typing a message in Gaim, or something else (ie. no reproducible action), the keyboard will stop "working." Anything I type won't be sent to the window anymore, though CTRL+ALT+F1 (F2/F3/F4/Backspace/Etc...) do still work. I'll focus a term (urxvt) and the cursor will become solid (like it should), but when I type, the cursor becomes an empty box, which usually happens when it loses focus.

I can usually get it to work again by randomly mashing on the keys for a bit.. but if I don't do anything, it'll stay "broken."

Common apps running every time it happens: Enlightenment 16, Firefox, Thunderbird, X-Chat, GAIM, and (maybe) Azureus (not sure if it's on every time it happens, since it's only on when I'm torrenting) and probably some urxvt's.

Mouse still seems to work fine when this happens.

If anyone has some insight, I'd appreciate it.

mclang · 2005-10-24 13:25:03

Yep

Sometimes I get the same behaviour - mouse works, you can e.g browse network, but all keyboard input is halted. I had to log out and in before things started to work again. I didn't try keying random keys though...

Commonly I have following apps running: E17, Firefox, amule, rox-filer and couple of aterms. Could Enlightenment be the common denominator although I use E17 and you E16?

ozar · 2005-10-24 14:23:43

mclang wrote:

Could Enlightenment be the common denominator although I use E17 and you E16?

Don't know... but it happened to me once over the weekend, too, and I wasn't running Enlightenment, but was using either xfce4 or kde at the time, as I'm not sure which one I was in. Either way, I had to log out and then back in to get a working keyboard again.

Cerebral · 2005-10-24 21:49:00

Hm.. seems my problem is more widespread than I first thought.. meaning I first thought I was the only one getting these problems.

Maybe keyboard model has something to do with it? Logitech Wireless here, with the media keys and whatnot. (don't remember model #)

ozar · 2005-10-24 21:53:23

Cerebral wrote:

Logitech Wireless here, with the media keys and whatnot. (don't remember model #)

Mine is some no-name generic brand, so I don't think it's a keyboard issue. However, it hasn't happened to me again.

mclang · 2005-10-25 10:21:59

I have ten years old keyboard with the old-style big connector. I have adepter to ps2 though... Locale LANG I use is en_US.utf8, but I have changed numeric, monetary etc stuff to fi_FI@euro

What other information should I provide?

Kern · 2005-10-25 12:27:31

have you tried taking firefox out of the running applications loop?

Sometimes a popup appears, steals focus, and demands a key to be hit to proceed. Only it doesnt bring it to the front.

i've found this to happen and had to Alt-Tab thro all open tabs/windows to find the guilty party.

mclang · 2005-10-26 10:49:13

Hmm
Have to try that one next time...

johnisevil · 2005-10-30 22:01:47

I've also experienced this problem and it seems to happen randomly. Originally I thought it was Firefox but it just happened again while using gmpc when going through my playlist. I have to hard reboot since I obviously can't just hit ctrl-alt-del since I get no keyboard response at all when this happens.

ozar · 2005-10-31 22:49:34

Just to update... the keyboard malfunction thingy has happened a couple more times here, and both times it was while using XFCE4 with no programs open other than Firefox, and then only a single window with no extra tabs open.

Upon launching a different program the keyboard seems to work in it, and then when I go back to Firefox the keyboard continues to work.

Like johnisevil said, it seems to be a random thing.

johnisevil · 2005-11-11 17:10:07

For me at least, I think my problem was due to the keyboard itself. It just froze up and when I rebooted, some of the keys didn't work at all. I thought this was only affecting Linux. So I go into my BIOS and these same keys don't work there either. Going to plug this keyboard into my FreeBSD box to confirm that it's the keyboard.

Edit:
Appears that the keyboard is dead. Plugged it into the FreeBSD box and get no response. Rebooted the box and I get a keyboard error during POST.

ozar · 2005-11-11 23:22:45

For my part of the problem, I'm beginning to wonder if it has anything to do with XFCE4 because I went back to PekWM and it hasn't happened again since.

cromero · 2006-08-21 18:37:33

Im having a similar problem with the keyboard with some differences.

- Im running fluxbox and azureus only, nothing else
- The logout thing doesnt work for me, i usually end up rebooting the computer since i dont really know whats causing the problem.
- The shortest time the computer has been working without problems is about 12hrs... the longest about two days (not long enough)

Tried different ps2 keyboards and all show the same behavior. I also tried different things like:
- pacman -Syu
- changing from regular to beyond kernel

Im thinking this could be a ps2 port issue since the computer is kinda old and has had already other hardware problems.

This computer uses remote ldap users bu tim already sure this isnt causing the problem since other boxes in the network keep working fine and i can still log to that computer remotely using ssh with any ldap or local user.

By the way logs dont show anything useful and the box has about 1.5GB ram

Cerebral · 2006-08-21 19:03:31

Just an update, for cromero's sake here, the problem stopped happening for me at some indeterminant point. Don't know why, or even remember when it stopped happening, but I haven't had this problem in a looooong time.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-10-23 00:29:43

Keyboard stops working

#2 2005-10-24 13:25:03

Re: Keyboard stops working

#3 2005-10-24 14:23:43

Re: Keyboard stops working

#4 2005-10-24 21:49:00

Re: Keyboard stops working

#5 2005-10-24 21:53:23

Re: Keyboard stops working

#6 2005-10-25 10:21:59

Re: Keyboard stops working

#7 2005-10-25 12:27:31

Re: Keyboard stops working

#8 2005-10-26 10:49:13

Re: Keyboard stops working

#9 2005-10-30 22:01:47

Re: Keyboard stops working

#10 2005-10-31 22:49:34

Re: Keyboard stops working

#11 2005-11-11 17:10:07

Re: Keyboard stops working

#12 2005-11-11 23:22:45

Re: Keyboard stops working

#13 2006-08-21 18:37:33

Re: Keyboard stops working

#14 2006-08-21 19:03:31

Re: Keyboard stops working

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