On 08/05/2021 15:20, Dimitry Andric wrote:
On 8 May 2021, at 16:02, Roger Leigh wrote:
This might sound like a bit of an odd one, but I’ll try to describe it. When I
run a FreeBSD 13-RELEASE virtual machine under VMware, it appears to work
correctly, but randomly stops working.
If I focus the VMware window, and press Ctrl-G to grab input focus (or click in
the window), I can log into the system using the console. However, if I press
Ctrl-Alt to ungrab the input focus, or click outside the window, the block
cursor on the console vanishes, and it’s no longer possible to type any input.
However… if I grab focus again, I can use Alt-Fn to switch to a different
virtual console, log in again and everything is fine… up until I switch focus
to something else and the block cursor vanishes in that virtual console.
Repeat until you run out of virtual consoles!
I can’t reproduce this with FreeBSD 12. It seems to only happen with FreeBSD
13. I’ve had it happen reproducibly when losing focus, but then again
sometimes I’ve had a few minutes where it doesn’t happen, until it starts
occurring again. While it seems that losing focus is the trigger, there might
be something else going on.
Has anyone else noticed this or have any suggested workarounds?
Press the Scroll Lock key to 'fix' it, if that is possible for you. This is
some weird interaction between VMware's input focus grabbing method and our
console, which sometimes turns on Scroll Lock accidentally. I have not been
able to put my finger on when it happens exactly, but it does happen often.
For me, it usually occurs when I use Microsoft Remote Desktop to access a
Windows machine running VMware, and switch back and forth between Remote
desktop and another application. Something about losing the focus is making the
VMware GUI inject a Scroll Lock event. It's pretty tricky to generate Scroll
Lock via Remote Desktop though, especially from a Mac, which doesn't have that
key at all. :)
-Dimitry
PS: Note that Scroll Lock is normally used in FreeBSD's console to scroll back
in the virtual consoles, as opposed to Linux's shift-PageUp and shift-PageDown.
But it is a toggle, not a one-off key.
Thanks Dimitry, that certainly makes some sort of sense! I am indeed
connecting from a Mac to a beefier Windows 10 PC running VMware
workstation using Remote Desktop. Going back to one of the "broken"
consoles, I can indeed use PgUp/PgDn to scroll up and down, so it
certainly appears as though a Scroll Lock keypress was sent or triggered
somehow. While I do have a regular PC keyboard hooked up, I don't find
myself able to send that key event through the Remote Desktop session.
However, if I physically log into the Windows PC, I can unstick each
console with the physical Scroll Lock key, so it seems clear that
(somehow) Scroll Lock was triggered in the first place to cause the problem.
I have tried to trigger various combinations of grab/ungrab/switch to
window inside or outside of the Remote Desktop session, but I've not
been able to pinpoint the specific trigger.
Kind regards,
Roger
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