HID input not working after upgrade to Ibex

[grncdr]

Binary package hint: chuck

Chuck is able to find my keyboard and mouse using the HID interface, (it prints out the correct device identifiers) but it doesn't receive any events from them. This has been tested with my built in keyboard and touchpad as well as hotplugging USB keyboards and mice. (and setting the appropiate device numbers etc.)

I seem to recall that X has changed the way it handles input, so maybe chuck needs to be rebuilt with this in mind?

using chuck 1.2.0.8.dfsg-1.1ubuntu1

[grncdr (glurgle)]

In regards to this bug in ubuntus launchpad. It seems as though evdev has disabled the methods by which user apps could previously receive raw HID messages.

To sum up:

I found that after upgrading to the latest Ubuntu (with evdev 2.0.99+git20080912-0ubuntu5) a particular application (chuck) could no longer receive raw HID messages from my mouse and keyboard, though it had worked before.

I found the same behaviour with a USB gamepad, and using the gamepad led me to the bug regarding joysticks being recognized as mice. Disabling the evdev driver for the joystick not only allowed my joystick to function normally, but also allowed chuck to receive HID messages from the device normally, and that's why I think the problem with my mouse and keyboard is likely caused by evdev.

Unfortunately I don't understand much about how chuck goes about accessing the HID devices, so any pointers on how this should be done will be passed along to the chuck-dev list

[grncdr (glurgle)]

Some more investigation seems to point at the new evdev driver as the culprit. I attempted to use a USB gamepad as an HID device, and had the same result, and also the interesting behaviour that the joystick was controlling my mouse cursor. This led me to this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/274203

After using the FDI workaround listed in this comment: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/274203/comments/78, I can now access the gamepad as an HID device in chuck like before. So it seems that evdev is perhaps a bit zealous in locking the device and prevents other user-land applications from receiving the HID messages directly.

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

please grab http://people.freedesktop.org/~whot/evtest.c, compile it with gcc
-o evtest evtest.c and run it against the /dev/input/eventX device of your
joystick (where X is a number, you can get it from /proc/bus/input/devices)

Does it reporte a grab succeeding of failing?

[grncdr (glurgle)]

Ok, and now I have confirmed that I can see my gamepad after removing the custom fdi file and installing the xserver-xorg-input-joystick package. However, I'm still stuck with no HID messages from my mouse or keyboard.

[grncdr (glurgle)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> please grab http://people.freedesktop.org/~whot/evtest.c, compile it with gcc
> -o evtest evtest.c and run it against the /dev/input/eventX device of your
> joystick (where X is a number, you can get it from /proc/bus/input/devices)
>
> Does it reporte a grab succeeding of failing?
>

Grabbing either the mouse (touchpad) or keyboard fails, grabbing the joystick succeeds. This happens both with xserver-xorg-input-joystick installed, and without it. (restarting Xorg inbetween)

[grncdr (glurgle)]

curiously, I no longer have the same issue with gamepads grabbing the cursor regardless of whether xserver-xorg-input-joystick is installed or not. So now I'm really confused. Are my results from evtest normal?

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

> Grabbing either the mouse (touchpad) or keyboard fails, grabbing the joystick
> succeeds. This happens both with xserver-xorg-input-joystick installed, and
> without it. (restarting Xorg inbetween)

if grabbing the mouse fails, you need to update to evdev 2.1 and xserver
1.5.3. This issue has been fixed.

[grncdr (glurgle)]

Whoops, thanks for straightening me out there! Sorry if it took up much of your time :)