Comment 6 for bug 55843

I recently upgraded my home server from Ubuntu 5.10 to Ubuntu 7.10. I had this exact problem after upgrading. The erratic keyboard repeat would also occur after booting from the installation CD.

There were a lot of kernel log messages indicating a problem with USB. example :

Feb 22 01:20:12 imanserver1 kernel: [ 257.668386] usb 3-1.1: reset low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
Feb 22 01:20:13 imanserver1 kernel: [ 258.239408] usb 3-1.2: reset low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4
Feb 22 01:20:14 imanserver1 kernel: [ 259.621041] usb 3-1.1: reset low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
Feb 22 01:20:15 imanserver1 kernel: [ 260.295885] usb 3-1.2: reset low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4
Feb 22 01:20:16 imanserver1 kernel: [ 261.409977] usb 3-1.1: reset low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3
Feb 22 01:20:17 imanserver1 kernel: [ 262.324410] usb 3-1.2: reset low speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4

After tearing my hair out for a while, I found that I could fix the problem by editing /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and adding the line "blacklist usbhid" and uncommenting the "blacklist usbmouse" and "blacklist usbkbd" lines. I had to do this by booting from another linux CD as the erratic repeat problem is so severe as to be completely unusable. This fix wasn't perfect though, as the occasional keypress is now ignored - may be an unrelated problem with the usbkbd module.

So the usbhid module seems to have a particular problem with my usb keyboard & mouse. The peculiar thing about them is that they are connected via a KVM switch (ATEN CS-62U), which attaches both keyboard and mouse via the one USB port. No problems with this setup when running Ubuntu 5.10, only after moving to 7.10.

Apart from this problem, the upgrade went smoothly. The issue with some keypress events being ignored is annoying though - i'll continue to look for a solution to that.