Indicator appears when moving mouse between virtual machine guest and host

[NoOp]

Ubuntu 12.04.1 - 3.2.0-32-generic-pae #51 (32bit) & non-pae (64bit)
indicator-keylock 3.0.0.0~ppa0
gnome-shell 3.4.1-0ubuntu2 (DE = Gnome Classic)
VMWare Player 5.0.0

Thank for the application.

Indicator-keylock installed on the host machine (Ubuntu 12.04).
Start a virtual machine (VM) guest session (can be Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, Windows etc).
Moving the mouse to any edge outside, or at the edge of the VM guest window results in an indicator from indicator-keylock (Cap/Num/Scroll). This is extremely distracting... to the point that I've had to stop indicator-keylock ('killall indicator-keylock') prior to running a VM.

[Thea Barnes (tsbarnes)]

I'm looking into this, but I'm not sure what is causing it, as I have little experience with VMware Player. I'd prefer to avoid having to just detect VMware and disable the notifications if VMware Player is running. What notifications show up exactly? Is it for lock keys that are actually active, or possibly keys that are active in the VM but not the normal desktop, or vice versa?

[NoOp (glgxg)]

The notification that shows up is always Num Lock, regardless of whether I have the indicator preferences set to Caps or Scroll.
For example: set the preference to Caps. The keylock icon on the panel correctly shows 'A'. Depress Caps Lock and the 'A' turns dark and I get an indicator showing the keylock icon w/dark (bold) 'A' and the words "Caps Lock On'. All correct.

Now I start up the VMWare VM. Once the VM is up, moving the mouse outside of, or to the edge of the VM as in my original, causes the Num Lock indicator 'Num Lock is On' to appear for about 3 seconds. It is not consistent regarding the indicator message - sometimes it will show 'Num Lock is Off' without touching Num Lock on the host or guest machine.
  The oddest part is that if I move the mouse cursor out then back into the guest window repeatedly, the indicator will stay lit. The message doesn't change (Num Lock is On or Off), but I can see the indicator number icon '1' changing from bold to grey . Bold if I go out of the VM window, grey if I move it back into the VM window. Note: the same occurs even if I have the VM in full screen mode.

I highly suspect that this issue is due to the recent changes in VMWare Player. I cannot replicate using an older version of VMWare Player. Nor can I replicate using VirtualBox 4.2.0 (the most recent version of VB).

[NoOp (glgxg)]

It gets worse... It is not just related to a virtual machine: the indicator goes crazy if turned on and you access a VNC. My only option at this point is to purge indicator-keylock.

[Thea Barnes (tsbarnes)]

I tried using VMware, Virtualbox, and VNC (through Vino), and have been unable to reproduce this.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

I can still easily reproduce.

$ uname -a
Linux gg 3.2.0-41-generic #65-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 10 18:25:50 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ apt-cache policy indicator-keylock
indicator-keylock:
  Installed: 3.0.0-0~ppa0
  Candidate: 3.0.0-0~ppa0
  Version table:
 *** 3.0.0-0~ppa0 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/tsbarnes/indicator-keylock/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

VMware Player: 5.0.1 build-894247

$ dpkg -l | grep vmware
rc xserver-xorg-video-vmware 1:12.0.1-1ubuntu1.1 X.Org X server -- VMware display driver

I'll attach a video. Watch the top of the screen... I am moving the mouse (only) between the VMware WinXP client (the Firefox Google section) and the top panel.

[Simon (cansics)]

Did you get a fix / solution for this ?

It's driving me mad.

I'm using Ubuntu 13.04 64bit and VMware Player 6.0.0 build-1295980.

It happened with previous versions of both too and the num-lock box pops up and toggles every time I move the mouse outside of the Ubuntu screen - exactly the same as detailed above.

Regards.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

@Simon: Unfortunately no. I finally ended up purging the ppa.

[Thea Barnes (tsbarnes)]

I apologize for lack of responses, life events have taken my time away from this project for a while, and I'm still the only developer on it. I still can't reproduce this, which makes it incredibly difficult to work on, since I can't actively test it. However, from what I can tell, VMWare Player must be forcibly setting the lock key states when it captures/releases the keyboard. If that's the case, the best I could do would be to figure out a way to detect if VMWare is running and disable the notifications while it's running. The best solution would be for VMWare to not forcibly toggle the lock keys, but that's up to them. Have you checked the VMWare settings to see if there's a "don't mess with the lock keys" option?