Ubuntu

letter 'o' key doesn't work properly in 8.10

Asked by klighter6

I have an IBM Thinkpad T30 that I recently installed Intrepid and everything was going along fine and then all of the sudden one night my 'o' key wasn't working normally - every other key works fine. I am using the Generic 105-key (intl) keyboard model and the USA layout.

General problem: I press the 'o' key and nothing happens - it doesn't even put an 'o' on the screen. Every other key works fine.

1. I press the key and my blinking block cursor on the screen stops blinking and become a box (instead of a solid block) - or if I'm in a highlighted input text box and I press and hold the 'o' key the cursor disappears and the input box is no longer highlighted until I release the 'o' key.

2. I can do a <SHIFT>-'o' and I get a 'O' (capital 'o') like I should. I can press my <CAPS LOCK> key and then do a <SHIFT>-'o' and I get a 'o' like I should.

So, everything works like it should EXCEPT the regular way - the way everyone uses their keyboards 99% of the time.

I think maybe there was an update performed (this was on 03/31/2009 about 8:30 pm CDT) , but it seems unlikely that any of the packages upgraded were the cluprit.

Could anyone help?

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
klighter6
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
klighter6 (klighter6) said : 		#1

Just found something interesting...

I press the left <ALT> key and 'o' and nothing happens, but if I press the right <ALT> key and 'o' then it puts my 'o' on the screen.

Revision history for this message
Abi ^-^ (abiyasa-eka) said : 		#2

Hello, try to reconfigure your keyboard again ...

Just try something from system - preferences - keyboard ...

Maybe you can try to change your layout model, and change it back, but keep test your keyboard in the test field ....

Sorry i can't help you much
Good luck

Revision history for this message
klighter6 (klighter6) said : 		#3

thank you very much... I have tried that option several times to no avail... Maybe I could try changing the language too... but until then I am looking for another solution.

Revision history for this message
Abi ^-^ (abiyasa-eka) said : 		#4

Are you have more than one layout? Sometimes when i get a problem with ( " ) button, i add a new layout (not change it), such as USA layout, use it, and remove the older layout ...

After that, i add a new layout, and get my older layout back, use it, and remove USA layout, and it works ...

Sorry, i just want to share my experience ...

Good luck

Revision history for this message
klighter6 (klighter6) said : 		#5

Okay, here is what I have found so far...

1) I changed the keyboard layout to something completely different (like DVORAK) or something so that the 'o' key was replaced with another character for that key on the keyboard and the 'o' was someplace else. The character 'o' in its new place was typing just fine, but the key where the 'o' was still would not work... soooo that narrows it down to that key on the keyboard. I tried doing a dumpkeys/showkeys but neither would return the scan code (if someone knows of a better program for catching the scan codes from the keyboard please let me know).

2) The key works at the login prompt AND for newly created users. It STOPS working for my regular user (the one that I log in with everyday and has all my files stored in its home directory).

So, unless someone has any suggestions my work-around will be to save all of my files and create a brand new user. Of course, I would like to know an answer to this because there is nothing to prevent this from happening again, nor is there a way for me to really FIX it (wiping out my user and creating a new one is NOT a solution).

Revision history for this message
klighter6 (klighter6) said : 		#6

So, what I ended up doing was creating a new administrative user and as that user deleting my original user's .gconf* and .gnome* directories, then logging back in as my original user to recreate those directories from scratch. I lost some of my preferences but for the most part everything was there and I regained the full use of my keyboard once again. I then, of course, deleted my other administrative user to maintain a clean system.

Revision history for this message
Mike (mhulse) said : 		#7

Up until 10 minutes ago I had the same problem with the letter 't'. Only when in terminal the 't' did not work. I have found that somehow it go to be in the Keyboard Shortcut for terminal. So if I copied something and typed 't' it got pasted into terminal. Once I found that I changed it. But the whole thing happened without warning. Suddenly the 't' was being used for the paste command in terminal.