[hardy] keyboard stops responding after adjusting screen brightness

[Rocko]

Binary package hint: xorg

When I press the FN key with the down arrow key to reduce screen brightness, my keyboard stops responding except for the screen brightness and volume controls.

Menus also stop working (no drop down happens if I click on the menu) and the right-mouse button stops working. I can bring windows to the front by clicking on them but I can't move them. The cursor in gnome-terminal remains is displayed as the 'not in focus' symbol (ie an empty box instead of a solid flashing box) even if I click on its window.

If I just press the FN and up arrow key, the keyboard continues working afterwards, but once I have pressed the down arrow key to reduce the brightness, the keyboard stops working normally.

The only way I have found to fix this is to restart the X session, either by hard-rebooting or by logging in remotely via ssh and killing the Xorg process.

This is on:

Dell Inspiron 8600
Hardy (updated to beta version as of 21 March 08)
Gnome 2.22.0

Xorg input drivers:

ii xserver-xorg-input-all 1:7.3+10ubuntu7 the X.Org X server -- input driver metapacka
ii xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:1.2.0-1 X.Org X server -- evdev input driver
ii xserver-xorg-input-kbd 1:1.2.2-3ubuntu1 X.Org X server -- keyboard input driver
ii xserver-xorg-input-mouse 1:1.2.3-2 X.Org X server -- mouse input driver
ii xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 0.14.7~git20070706-1ubuntu4 Synaptics TouchPad driver for X.Org server
ii xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse 1:12.4.3-1ubuntu1 X.Org X server -- VMMouse input driver to use

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Some other keys do work:

CTRL-ALT-BS will restart the X session, and this fixes the keyboard problem.

CTRL-ALT-F2 will switch to a console login (but I can't log in because the normal keys aren't working).

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

I reinstalled Hardy from the beta alternate disk, and this bug no longer occurs.

[Brett Simmers (swtaarrs)]

I've hit almost this exact same bug in the Intrepid beta. My symptoms are the same as described in the original bug report, except that the problems appear regardless of whether I hit Fn+up or Fn+down. The little status bar window showing the brightness level that used to come up in Hardy isn't appearing any more, not sure if that is related. I'm on a Dell Inspiron 9300, running 8.10 beta with all updates as of October 13 2008.

Right now I'm running without an xorg.conf, but I think the exact same problem happened while I was still using the one inherited from my upgrade from Hardy.

[jrav (jravac)]

Similar prob on a Dell 6000 Laptop that had a clean Intrepid install, except when i press fn + up/down, it does adjust screen brightness and brings up the brightness level indicator, but the indicator bar doesn't move up/down (unlike volume indicator). Also, after that, the keyboard will not register anything under x, except for more fn + keystrokes. Also, the mouse trackpad works, but right click doesn't work properly.

[Rick Gabriel (klaxian1)]

I can confirm this in the final release of Intrepid also.

[William Grant (wgrant)]

The are other bugs filed for the problems in Intrepid.

[ajee (ajee)]

I confirm that on Dell 630, Ubuntu 8.10 and also seen in 9.04, keyboard doesn't work if I press fn+arrow(no matter up or down), and never comes back again even if I press fn+up(down) again.

Also, if I don't have power adapter plugged and bootup ubuntu, the keyboard becomes slow and cursor sticks after I login for quite a long time.

[glabeliol (akinstur)]

I can confirm this with a clean install of the final release of Intrepid on a Dell Latitude D400.

After pressing Function Up or Function Down to adjust screen brightness, the brightness indicator comes up on the screen. It never goes away. From there on out, the keyboard does not function (except for Function Up/Down). The mouse pad and left clicks work, but right click does not work. And the main menu does not work properly: When you use the mouse + left click to select Applications, Places, or System, the correct item is highlighted, but the menu does not appear. At that point I have to pull the plug and battery to force a hard shutdown.

[Connor Imes (ckimes)]

bug 301351 has a completed triage, so I will mark this is a duplicate.

[Kashi Gorton (flash87)]

I suppose technically it's not a duplicate of bug 285323 because the initial report here was fixed for Hardy, but some of the comments are duplicates of 285323.