Arch Linux

jc.saaddupuy

Member

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

Hi Archers :)

First post, sorry if not in the right section.

I have a quite anoying bug. I bought a no name laptop, imported by Textorm, model M116 SU7300, same model as this one (http://www.textorm.com/pc-portable/pc-p … 22%5D.html)

On the keyboard, the '<' and '>' symbols are mapped on "fn+W" and "fn+MAJ+W".

Everything works fine in a TTY console. All others fn-KEY are working well.

The problem is with a Xorg environment : when pressing fn+W or fn+MAJ+W, it seems that the release key is never triggered, acting like if I was pressing the key in continue.

When pressing another key, the crazy '<' input stop, but then, fn+W won't works again... until I trigger a press/release event with 'acpi_fakekey 86'.
Then, same scenario.

I booted a live Archbang,  same result (well, I wasn't very surprised), and a live Sabayon... same result.

Using xev, I can see that when pressing/releasing fn+W, the KeyReleased event is never triggered. I can provide a log if needed.

So it seems related to the Xorg driver....

I tryied to use the kbd driver by adding an xorg.conf

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier    "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver        "kbd"
    Option        "CoreKeyboard"
    Option        "XkbRules"    "xorg"
    Option        "XkbModel"    "pc105"
    Option        "XkbLayout"    "fr"  # "fr-oss" pour Feisty et +
    Option        "XkbVariant"    "latin9"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option "AutoAddDevices" "Off"
EndSection

I can confirm that the kbd driver was in use with Xorg log :

[   900.371] (II) LoadModule: "kbd"
[   900.371] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/kbd_drv.so
[   900.371] (II) Module kbd: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[   900.371]    compiled for 1.14.0, module version = 1.7.0
[   900.371]    Module class: X.Org XInput Driver
[   900.371]    ABI class: X.Org XInput driver, version 19.1
...
[   900.780] (II) Using input driver 'kbd' for 'Generic Keyboard'
[   900.780] (**) Option "CoreKeyboard" "on"
[   900.780] (**) Generic Keyboard: always reports core events
[   900.780] (**) Generic Keyboard: always reports core events
[   900.780] (**) Option "Protocol" "standard"
[   900.780] (**) Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
[   900.780] (**) Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
[   900.780] (**) Option "XkbLayout" "fr"
[   900.780] (**) Option "XkbVariant" "latin9"
[   900.780] (II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Generic Keyboard" (type: KEYBOARD, id 6)   

... no luck. Same comportement.

I tryed the xorg-input-evdev git version, no luck. (But if I understand, xorg-input-evdev use kbd as underlying driver?)

I also tryed xorg-server-dev 1.14.99.1-1

So for now, I use a ugly hack : I mapped "W-W" and "S-W-W" in my openbox rc.xml to execute "acpi_fakekey 86". Nearly working all the time.

I know this isn't directly related to Arch, but if someone has any pointers... I take any ideas.

Thanks in advance!

PS :
xorg-server 1.14.1-1
xf86-input-evdev 2.8.0-1

Last edited by jc.saaddupuy (2013-05-28 18:28:05)

drhill1

Member

Registered: 2013-03-27

Posts: 31

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

I've been having similar issues and after quite a lot of googling and browsing the Arch wiki, I think I'm finally getting somewhere.

Run

/usr/lib/udev/keymap -i /dev/input/event0

from a VT as root and use this to get a list of keycodes which are giving problems.  You may need to change "event0" to event1, event2 etc until it works.

In my case, this showed the following keycodes:

scan code: 0xA0   key code: mute
scan code: 0xAE   key code: volumedown
scan code: 0xB0   key code: volumeup

Then find the correct serio device:

root@work rules.d# ls -l /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio*/force_release
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 May 28 17:33 /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio0/force_release

root@work rules.d# cat /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio0/force_release 
369-370

Finally, add the correct keycodes to the force_release parameter, having converted the hex values above to decimal:

echo 369-370,160,174,176 > /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio0/force_release

This has solved my repeating volume key problem, now I just need to find a way of adding it to the udev rules in the same way as in /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/95-keyboard-force-release.rules

jc.saaddupuy

Member

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

Wow thanks!
I confirm that this is working.

Thanks to your infos, I investigate the udev stuff.
You will have to know the vendor and product name of your machine :

cat /sys/class/dmi/id/{sys_vendor,product_name}

Thats the strings your udev rule have to match in ENV{DMI_VENDOR} and ATTR{[dmi/id]product_name}.
For me, both was empty, so I use a wildcard :

ENV{DMI_VENDOR}=="*", ATTR{[dmi/id]product_name}=="*"

Then, you'll have to specify which codes needs to trigger a key release (sames as found with keymap -i)

Add a file in /usr/lib/udev/keymaps/force-release/  whith the hex values (one per line)

I named mine 'textorm'

/echo 0x56 > /usr/lib/udev/keymaps/force-release/textorm

And add it in the RUN of your udev rule (not the full file name):

ENV{DMI_VENDOR}=="*", ATTR{[dmi/id]product_name}=="*", RUN+="keyboard-force-release.sh $devpath textorm"

Knowing your serio ( /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio0), you can test the keyboard-force-release.sh script (the serio parameter HAVE TO NOT begin with /sys/)

/usr/lib/udev/keyboard-force-release.sh bus/serio/devices/serio0 textorm

You can then check the /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio0/force_release content.

Works like a charm :)

drhill1

Member

Registered: 2013-03-27

Posts: 31

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

Thanks, you've helped me out on the udev side too and mine's now working perfectly.

GloW_on_dub

Member

Registered: 2013-03-13

Posts: 389

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

I'm having same problem here. Working on it.

GloW_on_dub

Member

Registered: 2013-03-13

Posts: 389

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

Thanks to you, it's working very well, for unlocking my "less" and "more" key.

EDIT: I jsut noticed that my udev rules in 95-keyboard-force-release.rules disapeared after update.

So i've created a dedicated rules so it will stay.

Last edited by GloW_on_dub (2013-06-07 18:17:41)

jc.saaddupuy

Member

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

Hi.

I wake up this thread, as the problem poped up again

More precisely, I don't have the scripts keyboard-force-release.sh and the /lib/udev/keymap tool anymore.

The file /etc/udev/rules.d/60-keyboard.rules has changed a lot, and I don't know how to make it work with udev at start up.

Does anyone here have updated his config? How do you manage to have it to work with udev now ?

drhill1

Member

Registered: 2013-03-27

Posts: 31

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

Hi again,
I also spotted it stopped working a few months ago and spent a while trying to fix it again.  I didn't have much luck with udev so I cheated by creating a shell script containing:

#!/usr/bin/bash
echo 369-370,160,174,176 > /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio0/force_release

which I run at boot from a new .service file within /etc/systemd/system:

[Unit]
Description=Stop the VOL+ VOL- and MUTE buttons from repeating

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/keyboard-force-release.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target 

It may not be as clever as the udev rule, but it works fine once you know the values to add into the script.

jc.saaddupuy

Member

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

Elegant enough for me.
Thanks again

GloW_on_dub

Member

Registered: 2013-03-13

Posts: 389

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

It still working here, just follow drhill1 and jc.saaddupuy instructions.
The only change is the location of udev rules, wich are now only located in /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/ , not in /etc/udev

Just create your own rule in this folder.

Last edited by GloW_on_dub (2014-01-12 19:19:17)

jc.saaddupuy

Member

Registered: 2013-05-27

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Keyboard issue - fn+key "KeyRelease" event not triggered

Hi there.

To fully automate the thing accross arch reinstallation (I know this day will come), I've made a PKGBUILD which create the two files (bash script + systemd service) and enable/starts the service.

If anyone is interested, it is on github. You will just have to adapt the values in the echo line to suits your needs.