[comp.windows.x] input problem to X11 on a Sun....

mwette@mr-edjpl.nasa.gov (Matt Wette) (08/29/90)

In article <8361@ncar.ucar.edu>, morreale@bierstadt.scd.ucar.edu (Peter Morreale) writes:
|> A new strange problem has cropped up on  *one* of the Sun3/50's 
|> that use X11 here.  The user will be typing away and suddenly, all
|> the characters appear (in xterms) in uppercase.  Additionally the 
|> mouse buttons are ignored everywhere on the root window.  Note also that
|> *only* the characters [A-Z] appear in a/any window (whichever has focus,
|> yes, we can move the pointer though button clicks are ignored...).  None 
|> of the other ASCII characters  (./><&$, etc...) appear in the windows.
|> 

I have often run into this problem (though it was more sever under X11R2).
The problem is somehow input get stuck in shifted mode.  My guess why the
mouse doesn't work is that your button presses aren't bound to the shift
key.

My solution: I hit both shift keys irradically for 10-20 hits.  This usually
seems to work.  In case it doesn't I include the following in my .cshrc file
to kill xterm and get out of X11:
	alias EXIT exit

Matt
 _____________________________________________________________________________
 Matthew R. Wette			| Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 198-326
 mwette@csi.jpl.nasa.gov                | 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena,CA 91109
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

morreale@bierstadt.scd.ucar.edu (Peter Morreale) (08/30/90)

A new strange problem has cropped up on  *one* of the Sun3/50's 
that use X11 here.  The user will be typing away and suddenly, all
the characters appear (in xterms) in uppercase.  Additionally the 
mouse buttons are ignored everywhere on the root window.  Note also that
*only* the characters [A-Z] appear in a/any window (whichever has focus,
yes, we can move the pointer though button clicks are ignored...).  None 
of the other ASCII characters  (./><&$, etc...) appear in the windows.

To add another kink, this just started after we had a general memory
upgrade to the 3/50's.  Went from 4 to 8Mbytes with third party 
memory.  Note again that *none* of the other 3/50's are experiencing
this problem.

This isn't an xmodmap problem, the user isn't using xmodmap at all.

If I had to take a guess, I'd bet that the server is having some kind of
problem translating the keysyms that the keyboard and mouse is producing.

Note that we have 25 or so Sun3/50's and this problem appears on *one*.
(consistently, this is the third time this week)  If we softboot the
system, the problem goes away (til it happens again ;-).

Perhaps a broken keyboard?  Has anybody seen this before?  We're
clueless.

datum:   X11, fix-14, no local mods, SunOS 4.0.3c,  Sun3/50


Thanks,
-PWM
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter W. Morreale                  email:  morreale@ncar.ucar.edu
Nat'l Center for Atmos Research    voice:  (303) 497-1293
Scientific Computing Division     

fgreco@govt.shearson.COM (Frank Greco) (08/30/90)

>
>A new strange problem has cropped up on  *one* of the Sun3/50's 
>that use X11 here.  The user will be typing away and suddenly, all
>the characters appear (in xterms) in uppercase.  Additionally the 
>mouse buttons are ignored everywhere on the root window.  Note also that
>*only* the characters [A-Z] appear in a/any window (whichever has focus,
>yes, we can move the pointer though button clicks are ignored...).  None 
>of the other ASCII characters  (./><&$, etc...) appear in the windows.
>

>Perhaps a broken keyboard?  Has anybody seen this before?  We're
>clueless.
>
>datum:   X11, fix-14, no local mods, SunOS 4.0.3c,  Sun3/50
>
>--
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>Peter W. Morreale                  email:  morreale@ncar.ucar.edu
>


	Yes...Yes.... I have the same problem.  The only difference
	is that I'm saddled with a 3/60.  Its a major pain to 
	restart everything, esp. when you have editting sessions in
	several windows!   


Frank G.

mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU (08/31/90)

>> A new strange problem has cropped up on *one* of the Sun3/50's that
>> use X11 here.  The user will be typing away and suddenly, all the
>> characters appear (in xterms) in uppercase.  Additionally the mouse
>> buttons are ignored everywhere on the root window.

Sounds as though the X server decided the capslock/shiftlock key went
down, or perhaps one of the shift keys went down but didn't come back
up.  Why it would decide this I can only speculate; perhaps your
keyboard hardware is flaky.  Try pushing your capslock/shiftlock key,
and perhaps the shift keys, a few times and see if that cures it (the
shift keys to generate valid down/up events to get the server in sync
with reality there; the lock key in case that's the problem).

>> Note also that *only* the characters [A-Z] appear in a/any window
>> (whichever has focus, yes, we can move the pointer though button
>> clicks are ignored...).  None of the other ASCII characters
>> (./><&$, etc...) appear in the windows.

Does this apply to just new keystrokes or to characters that already
existed?  If the latter, your server has a strange and wonderful new
bug I've never heard of before.

Hmmm, you can't type anything but letters?  Definitely sounds like a
flaky keyboard; when Lock is in effect non-letter characters normally
work just as normal.

It's a somewhat risky thing to try, but I've occasionally managed to
fix out-to-lunch keyboards without having to kill whatever is going on
by unplugging and replugging the keyboard itself.  This will usually
abort the machine (like L1-A), but a c (continue) command will, in my
experience, bring it back to life.  This is not a Factory-Approved
Solution; I even seem to recall some Sun documentation warning "don't
do this".  I don't know whether this was because most people will freak
when they get "Abort at 0x0f0087ca" / "> " or because there's a real
danger of damage to the keyboard; power-cycling equipment always
carries some danger, but I've never had anything worse than an abort
happen.

					der Mouse

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			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu