My computer died - keyboard input freezes applications, terminal gone

trusktr · 2010-08-13 22:51:26

I was messing around with google chrome settings in my ~/.config/google-chrome folder and also changing appearance settings for my Gnome desktop...

Then, unexpectedly, clicking on my Gnome Terminal icon to open a terminal window stopped working. It just appears to load and the CPU usage goes up for a bit, then nothing happens.

Now if I try to launch any program that can take keyboard input, it crashes when I begin typing any string! For example, google chrome will crash when i begin typing a URL in the URL space. Or Gedit will unexpectedly quit when i begin typing code. Most programs are crashing on the first inputted character.

It doesn't happen in certain scenerios though. For example, when i start Empathy, the homepage is google.com and I can begin typing anything in the google search field, but if i try to type something in the URL field of Empathy, then it crashes. This leads me to believe that perhaps it related to the desktop GUI (gtk).

... i DID install a new GTK engine from the repos, perhaps this is causing the problem. If i find out, I'll post it. It might be worthy of a bug report.

Firefox, however, experiences no problems.

This "bug" has made my whole desktop useless. So strange.

EDIT: if i switch to a different virtual terminal (e.g. tty1), the keyboard works just fine. So the problem is inside Gnome.

Last edited by trusktr (2010-08-13 22:59:22)

trusktr · 2010-08-14 04:16:43

Apparently, this bug only happens when i log into the Gnome desktop as my user. If I log in as root, everything is just fine!

x33a · 2010-08-14 08:21:53

try creating a new user and, see if the issues show up with that profile also.

Vamp898 · 2010-08-14 10:28:37

take a look in $HOME/.xsession-errors

trusktr · 2010-08-29 22:22:40

Hey x33a, I tried creating a new user, and if I launched Gnome from tty1 in runlevel 3, then the desktop worked for the new user. However, oddly, if I boot into runlevel 5 so Gnome starts up at boot, then GDM crashes and will restart each time i try to input the password for the new user. So wierd.

Anyways, this was a brand new install so i decided to re-installed Arch all over to solve the problem, but this isn't a *real* fix. If it happens again, i'll be back to try and figure it out and will look in $HOME/.xsession-errors like Vamp mentioned.

KlavKalashj · 2010-08-29 22:39:19

You said you installed a new gtk engine. You should maybe have tried uninstalling it from a tty, but since you've already reinstalled... fine. But it probably wasn't necessary

trusktr · 2010-08-30 18:49:41

Actually, I tried that KlavKalashj! I didn't work. I removed everything including all the original "eye candy" that was mentioned in the beginner's guide plus all the extra engines and themes i had installed from the repos and i still had the problem.

I think one of the engines or themes perhaps went against Arch standards and made a change to one of the system files or something. But then again, i tried reinstalling gnome, gnome-extra, and gnome-system-tools over again and it didn't fix the problem either. Strange!

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-13 22:51:26

My computer died - keyboard input freezes applications, terminal gone

#2 2010-08-14 04:16:43

Re: My computer died - keyboard input freezes applications, terminal gone

#3 2010-08-14 08:21:53

Re: My computer died - keyboard input freezes applications, terminal gone

#4 2010-08-14 10:28:37

Re: My computer died - keyboard input freezes applications, terminal gone

#5 2010-08-29 22:22:40

Re: My computer died - keyboard input freezes applications, terminal gone

#6 2010-08-29 22:39:19

Re: My computer died - keyboard input freezes applications, terminal gone

#7 2010-08-30 18:49:41

Re: My computer died - keyboard input freezes applications, terminal gone

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