Bug 448604

Created attachment 306829 [details]
xorg log of a session that ended in a lockup, and was closed by ctrl-alt-backspace

I'm hitting this too with about the same frequency after upgrading F8->F9.  I've
found that if I hold a key down for a bit, it "works" again although I get a
stream of characters (which is generally not useful).  They also seem to come in
pairs (I can get 2 or 4 but not 1 or 3).  Keyboard works fine in the virtual
terminals and even other X displays (although when I hit this just now, I was
unable to switch, ctrl-alt-fN didn't work).  The first time I hit this, I
attempted to use backspace, which seemed to trigger ctrl-alt-backspace behavior
(X died).

Andrew, are you also using XFCE, or can we rule that out as a factor?

I'm running blackbox + bbkeys.  blackbox has no keyboard interaction (bbkeys
handles that).  I killed bbkeys, but that had no effect.

I've also been able to "fix" this a couple times.  It happened shortly after I
posted the previous comment, and after holding down both ctrl, both alt and both
shift simultaneously, it started making beeps with different frequencies and
enabled scroll lock (the LED came on).  I hit ctrl again and then all was back
to normal.

(In reply to comment #4)
> I'm running blackbox + bbkeys.  blackbox has no keyboard interaction (bbkeys
> handles that).  I killed bbkeys, but that had no effect.
> 
> I've also been able to "fix" this a couple times.  It happened shortly after I
> posted the previous comment, and after holding down both ctrl, both alt and both
> shift simultaneously, it started making beeps with different frequencies and
> enabled scroll lock (the LED came on).  I hit ctrl again and then all was back
> to normal.

I have the same problem and I am running fvwm2. I have the same versions of
xorg-x11-drv-keyboard and xorg-x11-server-common as Pekka, but I am using
xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.8.0-14.fc9.i386.

In this state, I can still cut and paste characters with the mouse to build up
commands, so I started xev. I see that it takes a second or so for X to detect a
keypress according to xev. Keys like CTRL-C work only if I press CTRL down first
wait a second and then press C for another second.

This state has occurred several times in the course of a week.

Same problem, characters come in pairs after you've held the key down long
enough for auto-repeat to start.  Keyclick turns itself on when it was silent
before.

WM is fvwm2.

xorg-x11-drv-keyboard-1.3.0-3.fc9.x86_64

(In reply to comment #6)
> Same problem, characters come in pairs after you've held the key down long
> enough for auto-repeat to start.  Keyclick turns itself on when it was silent
> before.
> 
> WM is fvwm2.
> 
> xorg-x11-drv-keyboard-1.3.0-3.fc9.x86_64

I now think the problem is not with xorg at all, but with gnome-settings-daemon,
specifically with the version in the updates not the original version.

If I start gnome-keyboard-properties, when the system is in this hung state
(I've added a button for it, so I can operate it from the mouse) this seems to
restart gnome-settings-daemon which fixes the keyboard, though it also screws up
my X resources and changes the desktop wallpaper. I think the root problem is
that gnome is becoming too intrusive, wanting to take over things even if the
user is using a different window manager.

There seem to be three changes made to gnome-settings-daemon between the
original version and the updates version. One produces this keyboard problem.
One causes gnome to change the desktop wallpaper and the third is a genuine bug
fix, where a space was left out between arguments in a command that was generated.

Downgrading to gnome-settings-daemon-2.22.1-0.2008.03.26.7.fc9.i386.rpm (i.e.
the one which ships with Fedora 9) seems to fix the keyboard problem. At least I
haven't had it for several days now, which wasn't the case before. It seems that
several gnome applications start the settings daemon and it seems to assume that
it should take control of everything, which is very annoying for users of other
window managers, who just want to use a few gnome applications!

Please go into System, Preferences, Accessibility. Then tick "Only accept long
keypresses".

Sounds much like this could be the culprit. If so, then we have two bugs to fix:
- the server shouldn't cause two key events
- g-s-d shouldn't randomly switch this option on.

Fix pushed upstream as ff1a9b7fea2cfe00bc02a99b919fa1178d4f0b12.

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/commit/?h=server-1.5-branch&id=ff1a9b7fea2cfe00bc02a99b919fa1178d4f0b12

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 445898 ***