Ctrl-key stuck in Gnome after continued browsing

[Carl-Erik Kopseng]

First of all - I have not been able to find a way to reproduce this bug when I want to. I have tried - a lot.

That being said, this happens quite often. I use firefox 3 on Ubuntu 8.04 and browse a lot using Ctrl+click (opening a new tab in the background) and Ctrl-W. At some time (often after 15-20 minutes) the control key seems stuck. Just normally clicking on any link opens the page in a background tab in firefox.

Thought this might just affect firefox, but the whole desktop environment is affected, so I guess it must be gnome, somehow. The symptoms are very much like those described here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/194214

Unfortunately I can't log out normally, because everything I click just seems highlighted. Can't type anything in thegnome- terminal; just have a rectangle where the letters should be. You can see the same thing when just pressing Ctrl in a normal session. I have to either Ctrl-Alt-F1 to a terminal and run "killall gnome-session" or kill the X-server via the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace combination.

Because I have not found an easy way of reproducing this bug (quickly!) I guess it will be closed as incomplete, but since this has happened quite a few times since the launch of 8.04, I though I might report it.
[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a00] (rev 03)
     Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:011b]
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a02] (rev 03)
     Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:011b]

[Elizabeth Cassell (elizabeth-cassell)]

I am experiencing this exact same bug. Has there been a fix?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi kopseng,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file from after reproducing this issue. If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.

[Carl-Erik Kopseng (kopseng)]

Sorry, I obviously haven't paid attention to this thread, because I didn't know I had been requested to provide informasion. I'll try to do that once I get home in a few hours.

But it will be problematic to test this bug since I no longer run 8.04, but 8.10 ... and from related bugs, such as 194214, it seems that I will need to have Compiz running, which I haven't in a while. That might explain why I haven't seen this bug in a few months.

Just to make clear - it's hard to reproduce this bug! It just seems to happen without any specific thing to make it go BOOM. Quite irratic behaviour.

[Carl-Erik Kopseng (kopseng)]

Not able to reproduce this bug intentionally. So this is in a bug-free state.

[David Oftedal (rounin)]

I've been having this problem across several versions of Ubuntu, and have been affected by the problem both in KDE and Gnome.

One link that has been suggested is that it could be related to some keycode-related error messages that keep appearing in dmesg :

[quote][4335062.871000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02a <keycode>' to make it known.
[4335063.546000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xaa on isa0060/serio0).
[4335063.546000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02a <keycode>' to make it known.
[4335063.607000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xaa on isa0060/serio0).
[4335063.607000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02a <keycode>' to make it known.
[4335073.996000] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xaa on isa0060/serio0).
[4335073.996000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02a <keycode>' to make it known.
[4335074.114000] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xaa on isa0060/serio0).
[4335074.114000] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02a <keycode>' to make it known.[/quote]

These error messages can be stopped by going to System->Administration->Services and disabling a service known as hotkeys-setup.

In yet another attempt to make Ubuntu usable again I've disabled this service, so if the system remains functional, expect to hear more from me.

[David Oftedal (rounin)]

It's been 16 hours without the hotkeys-setup service, and so far the keyboard has worked perfectly. It looks as if we may have found our culprit.

[David Oftedal (rounin)]

But now the bug's returned again. Too bad, because this one seemed to be a winner.

[Carl-Erik Kopseng (kopseng)]

I am wondering if this has nothing to do with Gnome, but it is actually a bug purely in Firefox, and thus belongs there. The reason I think this is so is because I just experienced the exact same thing in Windows XP after an hour of surfing with Firefox! It happened at about the same time I opened a PDF (after having opened many pdfs in the same session without troble).

How this bug is able to reproduce itself on two different platforms, having an effect on key presses even after closing Firefox, is beyond me.

[David Oftedal (rounin)]

Well, I'm using Iceweasel on Windows Vista now and can't remember experiencing the bug even once, but on Linux it occurs about once a day... So if the bug did occur in XP, it seems to have been fixed in Vista. Either that, or it's directly linked to the Firefox logo and trademark.

[David Oftedal (rounin)]

It may be related to differences in the keypress handling in kernel 2.6, though. Here's someone reporting a similar bug in 2003:

http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/9/14/148

A person named Andries Brouwer replies with the following:

"The answers differ for 2.4 and 2.6. For 2.4 each keypress is a keypress,
and key releases are rather unimportant as long as the key is not a
modifier key. For 2.6 we have synthetic repeat, so a second keypress from
the keyboard is ignored, the key repeats with kernel-defined frequency,
and the repeat is ended by the key release."

If that's the reason, this bug must have snuck under the radar for more than five years! Though it would also mean that it's actually a hardware problem rather than a software problem.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Weird, so could be a firefox or kernel issue. Also quite possible the two of you have different unrelated bugs. Anyway, dropping xorg as the package for this since it needs deeper analysis to know what package is causing the problem. Btw, you might find xev useful in investigating this.

[Bryan Larsen (bryan-larsen)]

This has happened to me while I was in Skype, emacs and gnome-terminal, so it doesn't appear to be a firefox issue. It doesn't appear to happen in KDE or XFCE, but I haven't done extensive testing. The most likely culprit appears to be gnome or metacity. I'll restart X with xev and try to attach clean logs. The problem also appears to have started in the last couple of weeks -- perhaps related to a system update? The problem may have appeared after a system reboot, so any update after Dec 14th is suspect.

[Bryan Larsen (bryan-larsen)]

I've attached my lspci -vvnn and my Xorg.0.log. I have a KVM attached, but the keyboard is not plugged into the KVM. I have no xev logs -- I couldn't figure out what to attach it to -- I'm constantly switching between several different windows. This time the problem happened while I was in emacs.

I have the following in my .bashrc:

setxkbmap -option "ctrl:swapcaps"
setxkbmap -option "ctrl:nocaps"

I was using my caps lock key as a control key. When I released it, the system didn't notice. Unplugging/replugging the keyboard doesn't help. Banging on all the modifier keys doesn't help.

[Tim Xiao (xiaoyuting)]

I have the same issue on Ubuntu Intrepid.

Keys get stuck randomly, including enter, ctrl, backspace and shift keys. It's happened in Gnome Terminal, Firefox and Pidgin.

I wasn't able to reproduce the problem in command line mode (using ctrl+alt+F1). But I reproduced it in Gnome Terminal by running nano and typing randomly for about a minute before the enter key got stuck.

This log includes one of these reproductions.

[Larry Rossi (biz-launchpad)]

I have a brand new laptop (HP Pavillion DV5) with a brand new Intrepid installation. I can reproduce this at will whenever I launch emacs - the control key appears stuck, and even after exiting emacs it is stuck for a short while. It also seems to randomly get stuck when I'm not using emacs.

Please let me know if I should provide any logs - I see other users have already. I consider that this makes my machine nearly unusable.

[Larry Rossi (biz-launchpad)]

Additional note is that this only happens with my left control key. Not the right control key. And it is very reproducible so I'm happy to provide any additional logs I can.

I'm attaching some xev output which shows, near the bottom, an example of it being stuck. Where it is saying this:

KeyPress event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x4000001,
    root 0x7a, subw 0x0, time 3282296, (945,457), root:(952,508),
    state 0x4, keycode 33 (keysym 0x70, p), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (10) ""
    XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (10) ""
    XFilterEvent returns: False

I am simply pushing "p", not Control-p.

[Larry Rossi (biz-launchpad)]

An additional note: I can reproduce this in a simple console window (alt-ctrl-f6 window), so I doubt it's Gnome.

I ran strace of a ksh session where this is happening, and it shows that read() is receiving \16 (control-N) instead of the "n" that I'm typing. I don't know if this gives any additional clue about what layer of the system is confused.

[karlwilbur (karlwilbur)]

I have noticed this behavior accross several versions of ubuntu and accross two different laptops and my desktop. I first thought it was a KomodoEdit bug since it always started while in Komodo (but as a developer I spend the majority of my time in either KomodoEdit or Firefox), I then thought that it was a Gnome clipboard manager bug since it always affected copy-and-paste procedures. Since I have also determined that it also affects the virtual consoles as well it no longer thing that it is a gnome centric issue.

I seem to bring it on my doing a lot of control key activity since it is usually proceeded by long periods (a full minute or more) of continuous pressed control key. But I can not reproduce at will.

Though possibly not Gnome / X related, I find that restarting X fixes it (crtl+alt+bksp)

[Huandari Lopez (outofreach137)]

I am also experiencing this bug. And weirdly enough, I didn't have this problem before.
I'm not quite sure what the problem is, I am using KDE, and the only thing that I have done that seems peculiar is manually compiling and installing Firefox 3.5, but this bug does not only happen in Firefox.

I find that pressing (or rather, smashing) on the ctrl or shift keys fixes the problem..for the while. I have switched keyboards and yet the problem occures. I do have this in my dmesg:
[ 276.254455] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0x9f on isa0060/serio0).
[ 276.254457] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e01f <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 1035.775827] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xac on isa0060/serio0).
[ 1035.775829] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02c <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 1036.153698] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xac on isa0060/serio0).
[ 1036.153699] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02c <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 1036.518231] atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xac on isa0060/serio0).
[ 1036.518232] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02c <keycode>' to make it known.
[ 1036.771764] atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xac on isa0060/serio0).
[ 1036.771765] atkbd.c: Use 'setkeycodes e02c <keycode>' to make it known.
And many more of those. Again, this only just recently began happening.

[legolas558 (legolas558)]

Are you sure this is not kernel bug 9147? http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9147

You can find there a testcase and some workarounds.

[Huandari Lopez (outofreach137)]

Sorry I haven't replied...school.
I tried the solution on this page:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=76271#7
and that worked for me....I have not gotten this bug after days of usage. so maybe hotkeys-setup is indeed the problem?

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

this is not a meta-gnome issue.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

gnome-desktop is the about GNOME dialog and a library not the component for this issue

[Michael Fletcher (mikefletcher)]

This looks like a bug in the linux kernel. Can you run the commands below. These will add detailed information to the bug about your computer that will help diagnose the problem or hardware involved.

1. Push ALT-F2.
2. Type 'apport-collect -p linux 237604' without the quotes into the box.
3. Push ENTER.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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