fwiw, I just ran into the fubar keyboard problem with vmplayer 5.0.1 in Ubuntu 12.10, but found a workaround. Every single time that my mouse went into the vmplayer window, vmplayer trashed all the modifier keys so that CTRL, SHIFT, ALT all stopped working. xmodmap showed:
shift lock control mod1 mod2 mod3 mod4 mod5 Running setxkbmap reset the modifiers correctly, but of course it was a huge PITA to do that every time the mouse went over the vmplayer window. However, vmplayer worked fine for another user, so I compared our default xmodmaps: shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e) lock Caps_Lock (0x42) control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x69) mod1 Alt_L (0x40), Alt_R (0x6c), Meta_L (0xcd) mod2 Num_Lock (0x4d) mod3 Control_R (0x69) mod4 Super_L (0x85), Super_R (0x86), Super_L (0xce), Hyper_L (0xcf) mod5 ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c), Mode_switch (0xcb) The only difference was that mine had the "mod3 Control_R (0x69)" line, whereas the other user had a blank mod3 line. After issuing xmodmap -e "clear mod3" for my user so the two maps matched, vmplayer stopped trashing the keyboard modifiers for my user. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to xkeyboard-config in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/195982 Title: Shift key (and caps lock) stop working when using VMWare Status in The Linux Kernel: Invalid Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in “xkeyboard-config” package in Ubuntu: Invalid Status in Gentoo Linux: New Bug description: [Problem] VMWare's keyboard mapping is imperfect, sometimes resulting in certain keys stopping functionality when running under VMWare, requiring the user to setup their configuration settings manually in VMWare. For a detailed explanation see the following article: http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_devices_keymap_linux_longer.html [Original Report] After a day or so of running the shift key mysteriously stops working as does the cap lock. In other words I cannot enter shifted characters of any kind. The keyboard is connected to a KVM and all other systems respond to it properly. In additional any VMWare sessions I have open respond correctly. So I have the condition where all non-vmware applications in Ubuntu Hardy (all updates applied as of 2008-02-26 at 12:43 UTC) fail to recognize the shift key BUT applications within an active (a paused/restarted session also works) VMWare sessions running DO recognize the key. When this condition occurs ALL applications (except those within a VMWare session) are also unstable and will usually crash within a few keystrokes.If I continue to operate in this mode. I cannot pinpoint what, if any, application triggers this. It has always happened while working within terminal/browser/vmware sessions and NOT when opening a new application. It could be related to the KVM switch, but none of my other systems (2 Mandriva, 1 Windows) are affected by this. This bug has been present on my system for a number of days across daily updates and reboots (if the update requested it) and I think since I installed Hardy Alpha 1. A work around: log off and back on. A reboot/restart does not appear to be needed. Error logs show some unusual activity. --- MARK ---- ... ... kernel ... rtc lost 7 interrupts ... --- MARK --- .... Plus some segfaults indicating which application crashed as I tried to type into it (mouse works fine). System: HP dv9743cl (which otherwise works lovely) Ubuntu: Hardy 8.04 (from lsb-release) ---- TEST CASE: 1. Click inside the VM and 2. Hold any of the Ctrl, Alt and/or shift keys while releasing the keyboard/mouse to the host OS (which you obviously do when you press Crtl-Alt to revert back to windowed mode, as the cursor is then released from the VM). WORKAROUND: After this happens to recover your keyboard execute 'setxkbmap' in a terminal To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/195982/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
