Modifier keys escape vnc confinement

[Stefan Bader]

When running a VM display through vinagre (guest Oneiric desktop, vinagre tested on Natty and Oneiric), pressing the windows key and left alt key modifiers will get picked up by unity in the VM window as well as the desktop on the viewing machine. The actual key combination just seems to go into the guest as expected. The host showing the launcher or menu bar is confusing.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: unity 4.22.0-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic i686
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
Date: Tue Oct 11 15:17:45 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release i386 (20111011)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Tim Abell (tim-abell)]

It's worse for me as the "windows start" key isn't firing on the remote machine at all, even in fullscreen.

The "View > Keyboard Shortcuts" also seems to make F.A. difference.

This is infuriating, and I'm already at breaking point with Ubuntu and unity in 11.10. Think I might give up on ubuntu and move to Fedora for a change.

The main one that is driving me nuts is the fact that alt+space doesn't make it to the client maching (a windows xp box over rdp). I commonly use this shortcut to get the application menu to show.

tim@atom:~
$ apt-cache policy vinagre
vinagre:
  Installed: 3.2.1-0ubuntu1

[Tim Abell (tim-abell)]

Workarounds:

Incidentally if it helps anyone else, I eventually discovered that pressing alt and *then* space also works in in XP.

There's also ctrl+esc for start which does get through.

[dino99 (9d9)]

Oneiric is EOL now; is it still an issue with the recent releases ?

[Stefan Bader (smb)]

The behaviour is still present to some degree. Tried today with a Saucy VM running on Xen over a VNC session (provided by virt-manager). And while short super key presses seem to bring up the dash only inside the VNC session (with input grabbed by that), a long press brings up the help screen inside and outside the VM.
And leaving the grabbed VNC window and pressing <strg>+<alt>+<up> to move to a different screen on the main desktop suddenly causes the dash to appear.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for unity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Unity because there has been no activity for 60 days.]