Keyboard periodically locks on Ubuntu and GNOME 2

2

1

I'm on Ubuntu 10.04 with GNOME 2.30.

Once every couple of days, I might be pressing something or doing something – I haven't found out what it is, though last time I was pressing the "mouse lock" button on my on-board mouse on my laptop – my keyboard simply locks down.

Some keys work, like ALT+CTRL+F1-6 and also ALT+SHIFT still changes the keyboard layout, but everything else doesn't work, no letters, no other shortcuts.

To fix it, I go to ALT+CTRL+F1 (Terminal) and run 

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

But I'm getting kinda tired of doing that every now and then. Any ideas if in Gnome there's a shortcut for "Kill my Keyboard" or something?

Asaf

Posted 2010-06-21T17:14:48.597

Reputation: 959

Do you use USB keyboard? I have similar problem, getting 'Unable to enumerate USB device…' – takeshin – 2010-06-22T16:46:28.547

Please don't use <br>s to break lines. They're automatically wrapped. – slhck – 2012-02-08T11:24:09.107

I don't see that anybody has addressed the cause of the problem. – carbontax – 2013-03-29T13:57:46.430

Answers

2

I'm guessing that your X server is getting confused, based on the facts that a) your keyboard gets you to a working console and b) killing X (via gdm) clears the trouble.

Unfortunately, stock Lucid disables the "Kill X Server" Ctrl-Alt-Backspace sequence. Fortunately enabling it is easy System > Preferences > Keyboard > Options... > Key Squence to kill the X server.

Yes, you'll still be killing X, but it will be faster. /var/log/Xorg.log.0 may give you some hints as to the failure, or perhaps syslog or dmesg or kern.log. Happy hunting.

msw

Posted 2010-06-21T17:14:48.597

Reputation: 3 287

Good stuff, msw. – mcandre – 2010-06-21T17:59:56.553

1Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is deprecated...use the Magic SysRQ Key instead: Alt+Print+K. – Bobby – 2010-08-30T09:36:29.947

Asked: 2010-06-21T17:14:48.597

Viewed: 1 748 times

Active: 2012-02-08T11:23:39.170