Microsoft Digital Media Pro Keyboard glitchy (Enter and Delete keys messed up)

[gwern]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-input-kbd

gwern@craft:~$ lspci
`00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Controller (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 92)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801IB (ICH9) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801IB (ICH9) 4 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600 GT (rev a1)
03:00.0 IDE interface: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMB368 IDE controller
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01)
05:02.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller

gwern@craft:~$ dmesg|grep Microsoft
[ 31.482226] input: Microsoft Microsoft® Digital Media Pro Keyboard as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/input/input1
[ 31.502135] input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.11 Keyboard [Microsoft Microsoft® Digital Media Pro Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:1a.0-1
[ 31.530074] input: Microsoft Microsoft® Digital Media Pro Keyboard as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.1/input/input2
[ 31.550033] input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.11 Device [Microsoft Microsoft® Digital Media Pro Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:1a.0-1

---

So recently I began to try Ubuntu again. When I used the Hardy Heron/8.04 64-bit desktop Live/Install CD, I noticed that a number of key bindings were messed up.

The Delete key, for example, seems to have turned into some bizarre character followed by many spaces; following is xev output:

KeyPress event, serial 27, synthetic NO, window 0x3400001,
    root 0x54, subw 0x0, time 1164705, (560,503), root:(560,527),
    state 0x2000, keycode 107 (keysym 0xffff, Delete), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (7f) ""
    XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (7f) ""
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyPress event, serial 27, synthetic NO, window 0x3400001,
    root 0x54, subw 0x0, time 1164713, (560,503), root:(560,527),
    state 0x2000, keycode 23 (keysym 0xff09, Tab), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (09) " "
    XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (09) " "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

Even worse, the Enter key has turned into newline followed by an accent-grave (`):

`
`
`KeyPress event, serial 27, synthetic NO, window 0x3400001,
    root 0x54, subw 0x0, time 1236925, (728,409), root:(728,433),
    state 0x2000, keycode 115 (keysym 0xffeb, Super_L), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 27, synthetic NO, window 0x3400001,
    root 0x54, subw 0x0, time 1236949, (728,409), root:(728,433),
    state 0x2040, keycode 36 (keysym 0xff0d, Return), same_screen YES,
" XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (0d) "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 27, synthetic NO, window 0x3400001,
    root 0x54, subw 0x0, time 1236949, (728,409), root:(728,433),
    state 0x2040, keycode 49 (keysym 0x60, grave), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (60) "`"
    XFilterEvent returns: False

`This has obvious major implications for usability in text-fields and the command-line, where it isn't screwing up minor things like entering one's password.
`
`Well, I ignored it and continued on, confident that installation would fix things. One can hardly expect a LiveCD to get everything right.
`
`Except that my installation is just as bad. Out of desperation, I tried switching from pc104/US to one of the Microsoft layouts (none of which were for the Digital Media Pro, BTW), but none of them seemed to work: switching to an international from the US layout meant that my return key no longer generated accent-graves, but now the first keypress after every return would be ignored! Or 'e' would be Euro, or slashes of any kind would not work, or...
`
`The really frustrating thing is, I have been using this very keyboard under Linux for something like a year now. Under Gentoo, it worked absolutely fine - no problems. I had a very simple xorg.conf:
`
`Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
 Driver "kbd"
 Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
 Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
 Option "XkbLayout" "us"
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps,keypad:oss,kpdl:dot,altwin:meta_alt"
EndSection

`And it worked. I use the same section in Ubuntu, and...
`
`Strangely, for a few weeks it just randomly started to work correctly, but recently it reverted to its old behavior. I do not know whether this is because of any recent upgrades - the CD Ubuntu is broken, intermediate Ubuntu worked, and a fully updated and upgraded Hardy is broken.
`
`Miscellaneous notes: when I tested it at one point, it seemed to also be glitchy on the console. SSHing to my desktop obviously had no problems. Nothing recently happened to my keyboard to damage it that I am aware of, and changing USB ports makes no difference.
`
`--
`(On a side note, what's with launchpad insisting on a package name? How the hell should I know which little package is screwing things up? If "I Don't know" isn't a valid option, why is it being offered?)

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi gwern0,

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? (ISOs are available from cdimage.ubuntu.com)

If it remains an issue, could you also attach a new /var/log/Xorg.0.log?
Thanks in advance.

The output of lspci -vvnn would also be worth having.

[gwern (gwern0)]

I recently reinstalled with 8.10/Intrepid Ibex, using the official stable CDs. (I messed up and got the i386 when I wanted x86_64, but oh well.)

On receiving your question, I've hooked up the keyboard again (having switched to a less glitchy one), and tried again.

Seems to work fine now.

[gwern (gwern0)]

I am going to have to retract this one. I restarted X to make sure, and it is right back to the bad behaivour. I have added X.log and lspci as attachment.

[James McDermott (jamesmichaelmcdermott)]

I think I have the same or a similar problem. Sometimes, for example, my 2 key generates a trademark symbol, and instead of the at-sign I get the ae character. I have looked at xev and xmodmap, and the problem is that every character I type has state 0x2000, for example this is me pressing the 2 key:

KeyPress event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x3000001,
    root 0x7c, subw 0x0, time 19589483, (-86,-346), root:(510,213),
    state 0x2000, keycode 11 (keysym 0xac9, trademark), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x3000001,
    root 0x7c, subw 0x0, time 19589569, (-86,-346), root:(510,213),
    state 0x2000, keycode 11 (keysym 0xac9, trademark), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

The state *should* be 0x0 when no control/shift/alt keys are being held. When the state is something else, it generates an alternative character -- you can see the alternative characters for each key using xmodmap -pke. For example, the trademark character is one of the alternative characters for the 2 key.

This behaviour is intermittent, and I can fix it temporarily by running setxkbmap and then xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap. It returns randomly after a while. It happens under gnome and fluxbox and regardless of the keyboard layout. I am on Intrepid.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This may be a kernel issue, but refiling to -evdev for now.]

There's been significant improvements to input handling in Jaunty - would you mind re-testing a fully updated Jaunty to see if it's still an issue there?

[gwern (gwern0)]

I upgraded to Jaunty, and after dealing with 3 issues (nvidia driver was uninstalled, which messed my graphics up for a long time; something in .gconf/ made Gnome simply ignore my .gnomerc so I couldn't use any window manager but Metacity - a big issue since I need keyboard-driven WMs; and Nautilus failed because I had disabled showing the home folder icons), I swapped in the questionable keyboard and rebooted.

The issue remained the same - pressing enter yield an enter and then a backtick `. Still unusable.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automatic notification.]

Hi gwern,

This bug was reported against an earlier version of Ubuntu, can you
test if it still occurs on Lucid?

Please note we also provide technical support for older versions of
Ubuntu, but not in the bug tracker. Instead, to raise the issue through
normal support channels, please see:

    http://www.ubuntu.com/support

If you are the original reporter and can still reproduce the issue on
Lucid, please run the following command to refresh the report:

  apport-collect 245371

If you are not the original reporter, please file a new bug report, so
we can work with you as the original reporter instead (you can reference
bug 245371 in your report if you think it may be related):

  ubuntu-bug xorg

If by chance you can no longer reproduce the issue on Lucid or if you
feel it is no longer relevant, please mark the bug report 'Fix Released'
or 'Invalid' as appropriate, at the following URL:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/245371

[gwern (gwern0)]

I no longer have the keyboard to check against. (Seriously, was everyone expecting me to hold on to a useless keyboard for more than 2 years?)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xserver-xorg-input-evdev (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]