[Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

shakin · 2008-09-22 21:06:32

I haven't upgraded to testing versions of software. I am experiencing this problem both in X and when booting directly to a command line. i have rebooted my system since the upgrade, but the problem existed prior to rebooting after upgrading the system this morning. previous upgrade was late last week and i didn't notice the problem then.

When I type the left shift key I get the letter 'q' and when i type the right shift key i get the letter 'z'. If I try to type an uppercase letter the correct letter appears after the 'q' or 'z'. for example, when typing an uppercase 'i' I get two letters like this 'zI'.

bash tab completion is also affected because the tab key produces a strange string of characters. when i type 'pacm' and hit tab for completion i end up with 'pacman;2~' so the tab is still completing the command, but appending three characters to the end. tabbing does seem to work in kate and kwrite, but the shift keys produce the letters q and z everywhere.

the localization section of my rc.conf looks like this

LOCALE="en_US.utf8"
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"
USEDIRECTISA="no"
TIMEZONE="Canada/Eastern"
KEYMAP="us"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"

the keyboard section of my xorg.conf looks like this

Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "keyboard"
        Option      "CoreKeyboard"
    Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option "XkbLayout" "us"
    Option "XkbVariant" ""

Last edited by shakin (2008-09-24 14:54:36)

Mektub · 2008-09-23 13:08:32

Can't help much, still, execute

locale -a

to make sure that it outputs en_US.utf8.

Mektub

shakin · 2008-09-23 14:18:02

Mektub wrote:

Can't help much, still, execute
locale -a
to make sure that it outputs en_US.utf8.
Mektub

it actually outputs:

C
POSIX
en_US
en_US.iso88591
en_US.utf8

shakin · 2008-09-23 15:12:31

I have run through all the steps at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Locale and still have the problem. I tried switching to en_US.iso8859 and that didn't fix it.

Mektub · 2008-09-23 18:35:25

well, this should be quite low level, IMHO, since it happens in and outside X.

Try showkey on the console, and xev on X, find out what the system thinks the Shift keys are generating.

Mektub

shakin · 2008-09-23 18:59:49

Mektub wrote:

well, this should be quite low level, IMHO, since it happens in and outside X.
Try showkey on the console, and xev on X, find out what the system thinks the Shift keys are generating.
Mektub

using xev, pressing the left shift key one time gives me this

KeyPress event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
root 0x82, subw 0x0, time 14069212, (-666,-8), root:(205,494),
state 0x0, keycode 24 (keysym 0x71, q), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (71) "q"
XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (71) "q"
XFilterEvent returns: False
KeyPress event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
root 0x82, subw 0x0, time 14069220, (-666,-8), root:(205,494),
state 0x0, keycode 50 (keysym 0xffe1, Shift_L), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False
KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
root 0x82, subw 0x0, time 14069276, (-666,-8), root:(205,494),
state 0x1, keycode 24 (keysym 0x51, Q), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (51) "Q"
XFilterEvent returns: False
KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
root 0x82, subw 0x0, time 14069284, (-666,-8), root:(205,494),
state 0x1, keycode 50 (keysym 0xffe1, Shift_L), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False

at the console using showkey and pressing the left shift key one time gives me this

keycode 16 press
keycode 42 press
keycode 16 release
keycode 42 release

I also loaded a windows vmware session and the problem is present there as well, but that's probably because vmware passes along linux settings so windows works the same way.

Mektub · 2008-09-23 21:11:21

keycode 16 press

Thats a 'q'. I would say that until that is solved, no need to mix with X.

You said that it started hapenning after an update. I would reinstall all of them again just in case something
got corrupted. Perhaps reinstall kbd also.

I think there is a way thru pacman to find out what packages were last installed, but I forgot how to do it.

Perhaps someone else knows better.

Mektub

tigrmesh · 2008-09-24 01:59:58

Look at the last few lines of /var/log/pacman.log to see what recently got upgraded.

shakin · 2008-09-24 14:54:03

Problem solved: the keyboard is broken. It's an odd way for a keyboard to break (maybe it's more common for buckling spring keyboards than rubber dome/membrane keyboards) and it happened right after I updated so I assumed the update was at fault.

The good news is that Unicomp (pckeyboard.com) has excellent customer service and the keyboard is still under warranty.

Thanks for everyone's effort to help me solve the problem.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-09-22 21:06:32

[Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

#2 2008-09-23 13:08:32

Re: [Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

#3 2008-09-23 14:18:02

Re: [Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

#4 2008-09-23 15:12:31

Re: [Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

#5 2008-09-23 18:35:25

Re: [Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

#6 2008-09-23 18:59:49

Re: [Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

#7 2008-09-23 21:11:21

Re: [Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

#8 2008-09-24 01:59:58

Re: [Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

#9 2008-09-24 14:54:03

Re: [Solved] recent upgrade keyboard problem: shift key produces z and q..

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