Keyboard stops working

[kg4bzk]

Hi all,

I don't know if this is the correct topic group or not but here goes. Recently I've been having trouble with the keyboard on one of the user accounts on my PC. I'm running PCLOS 2009 and had some issues on the initial upgrade but worked them out months ago with no problems since. Over the last couple of weeks my daughter would log into her account and was not able to type anything except the initial log in. I created a new account and it is working fine now. Shortly after this my account started the same thing. It seems like something in the home folders of these accounts are getting corrupted but not sure.

Any suggestions

BZK

[kg4bzk]

With no answer yet I guess a reinstall is in my future.

[m.e.newby]

                 I've had the same problem and found the only way to correct it was to reboot and reset the keyboard settings in control centre.

[Texstar]

With no answer yet I guess a reinstall is in my future.

It has never happened to me so don't know what to tell you.

[kg4bzk]

I deleted my user account and recreated it with the old home folder in place and had the same results. I ended up having to setup up a new user with a new home folder and copy my old file back to make it work but it does work now.

[slick50]

I deleted my user account and recreated it with the old home folder in place and had the same results. I ended up having to setup up a new user with a new home folder and copy my old file back to make it work but it does work now.

I have had this issue once in my gnome laptop... The fix is simply remove:
~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/accessibility/keyboard/%gconf.xml

Log back in and was working again. No need to create a new user account. 

[aherkey]

I have had this problem and it was caused by KDE's Accessibility features.  It usually was triggered by holding down the shift or control keys too long.

Go to the Control Center -> Regional & Accessibility -> Accessibility -> Modifier Keys tab and uncheck "Use sticky keys", then under the Activation Gestures tab uncheck "Use gestures for activating sticky keys and slow keys", then click the Apply button.  

This can be done while the keyboard is not working and after clicking Apply the keyboard should start working again.

Hope this helps.

-Andy

[dixonpete]

I can confirm that this fix solves the problem. A friend's laptop's keyboard stopped working in user mode but still worked under root and when dual booted into Linux. Making the change outlined below immediately brought the keyboard back to life. Nice catch!

I have had this problem and it was caused by KDE's Accessibility features.  It usually was triggered by holding down the shift or control keys too long.

Go to the Control Center -> Regional & Accessibility -> Accessibility -> Modifier Keys tab and uncheck "Use sticky keys", then under the Activation Gestures tab uncheck "Use gestures for activating sticky keys and slow keys", then click the Apply button.  

This can be done while the keyboard is not working and after clicking Apply the keyboard should start working again.

Hope this helps.

-Andy

[krahnke]

I am having the same problem. Did a system upgrade today and installed an app called "tellico."  Keyboard worked all afternoon. This evening, without rebooting, the keyboard stopped responding after login. Works fine for password. Works fine as root. Tried the "accessibility" fix several times with no result.

Any further suggestions?

kk

[krahnke]

Follow-up ...

Keyboard does "work," but only with 1 to 3 second delays. No amount of tinkering with keyboard or accessibility settings that I know of  returns keyboard behavior to normal.

[krahnke]

But I don't know how. I was busy establishing a new user id, switching back and forth between the old and new and occasionally rebooting when, on reopening as the original user I received a message something like, "The system has received a request to disable slow keys .... ." I told it to go ahead, and the keyboard function is now normal.

If I had initiated such a request, I had done so quite some time earlier. I am a non-techie but a long time user, I have no idea why the delay or exactly what I had done to resolve the issue, except to disable the slow key function.

Thanks for suggestions.

kk

[dixonpete]

Sounds like a KDE function that was well-intended but causes more trouble than it's worth.

But I don't know how. I was busy establishing a new user id, switching back and forth between the old and new and occasionally rebooting when, on reopening as the original user I received a message something like, "The system has received a request to disable slow keys .... ." I told it to go ahead, and the keyboard function is now normal.

If I had initiated such a request, I had done so quite some time earlier. I am a non-techie but a long time user, I have no idea why the delay or exactly what I had done to resolve the issue, except to disable the slow key function.

Thanks for suggestions.

kk

[j-retired]

I got bitten by the slow/sticky keys effect too. So I eventually got the answer from some kind friend in the forum.

HOWEVER...... the REAL TROUBLE happened when my wife did it on her machine!  PCLOS was a dirty word for a while!!!

Oh for the days of the DOS format of "Are you sure?", and one that really amused me was in one system I was using, "Are you sure?" was followed by "Are you REALLY sure?"

j

[cpufrier]

Over the past five years my wife has had the problem of her keyboard stopping responding on three different machines and three (four if you count 07 and 09 as different) different operating systems, Win98 SE, Win2k, PCLOS 2007 and 2009. A cold reboot always fixes it but not necessarily a warm logoff-restart.  I have used the same machines and same OS's with it never happening to me. She does game and chat a lot so I always figured she used up some resource.  Never considered something like holding a key down too long. Anyway, PCLOS is not the only OS susceptable to a non responding keyboard.

[dieselbob57]

I had the same problem (caused by holding down the shift key using gimp), I went to control center and in addition to unchecking as the other posters said I had to uncheck and apply the use slow keys under keyboard filters.  It worked for me, I hope this helps someone else.