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Keyboard woes continue but somewhat improved - Printable Version

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Keyboard woes continue but somewhat improved - kendew - 10-21-2020

This thread continues the thread I posted some time ago.  Forgive me if that's not good protocol.  That thread received no replies and since then I've done a lot of my own trial and error research making the content of this post quite different.  Also, being a little more familiar with this forum I thought it might fit better in this category.

My basic problem is that the computer keyboard switches from upper to lower case on its own while I'm trying to type, making it pretty useless, especially for any work that is case sensitive, like terminal commands.

I just want to share my progress:

First, I tried various installs like Fedora and Debian from microSD card and found the same faulty behavior.  I tried installing Arch but of course that was impossible due to all the CLI input needed.  Tried different DEs,  KDE, Cinnamon, Lumina, LXQt and Xfce with no luck.    For now I am using Fedora with Openbox.  That the problem still persists with an external USB keyboard tells me maybe it's not a keyboard hardware problem.  But what sort of problem is it then?
After much trial and error I noticed:
1.   " sudo udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=input --action=change "
would temporarily stop the problem.  But the problem could revert in a matter of seconds.
2.  " xev -event keyboard  "
from terminal indicated a shift key problem.  This seemed logical as the problem mainly involves constant back and forth switching between upper and lower case.
3.  Installing and running onboard gave me a clear visual image of this shift key problem. Onboard showed me that the computer was by itself constantly typing the shift key, often many times a minute.  I am unsure of the cause, but I pinpointed the problem to the right shift key.
4.  Disabling the right shift key with " xmodmap -e 'keycode 62=' " alleviated the problem.  Placing this code in autostart files for the user and desktop environments helped make the keyboard somewhat usable as can be seen by the fact I am using the PBP to type this.
However, besides not being able to use the right shift key, I am also not able to type uppercase V, B, or M keys.  I am able to type them using Caps Lock. 
Of course, the original problem persists before login when typing password, which can be tricky.  I haven't been able to figure out how to make these changes during boot, before the login window appears.

Perhaps with this information you can help me in getting to the root cause of the problem.  I think it would be in the interest of making a better Pinebook.

At the moment I have a rather crippled computer.

All help, hints, info much appreciated.
Kendew


RE: Keyboard woes continue but somewhat improved - Paulie420 - 10-21-2020

I'm a newb, but since the problem persists with an external keyboard, it must be deeper in the system and not just a faulty shift key/keyboard, correct?

Maybe something in the connector or - well no... external keyboard shows the same symptoms. Where does the issue live, I wonder? The motherboard??? Elsewhere?

You've given tons of info, and I'm posting to bump this to new eyes as much as I am to talk thru it with you...


RE: Keyboard woes continue but somewhat improved - wdt - 10-21-2020

One more test, to see if it is kb or chip/controller on mb,,
disconnect the ribbon cable, does the problem persist or is it gone
(obviously using usb kb),, I would bet chip, just a hunch


RE: Keyboard woes continue but somewhat improved - kendew - 10-24-2020

It took me awhile to get around to this.  Thanks much for help.  Since this is a new PBP, I'm not willing to open it up at this stage, in case I have to send it back or something.  But you gave me a good hint, wdt.  Already I had tried connecting an external USB keyboard as mentioned, with no luck.  But the idea of disconnecting the laptop keyboard didn't occur to me as I didn't see how it would matter.
So, not willing to do a hardware disconnect I decided to try a software disconnect of the laptop keyboard using xinput, of course with an external USB keyboard connected.  I really didn't expect much. I had to create a new user login to be sure there was no influence from autostart scripts I had written.  Logging in as a different user brought the problem back full force, but after using xinput to disconnect the laptop keyboard, the external keyboard was working fine.  I went back and forth disabling and enabling the laptop keyboard to be sure it wasn't a fluke, but each time the external USB keyboard showed no problem behavior IF the laptop computer was disconnected.  If the laptop computer was enabled, both external and laptop keyboards demonstrated problem behavior.
That's a pretty big finding, I think, but not sure what to do with it.  Does it mean the laptop keyboard is bad?  Or could it still be a software thing?


RE: Keyboard woes continue but somewhat improved - wdt - 10-24-2020

I guess the question is: does the touchpad still work?
I'm not sure what xinput disconnects, where the disconnect occurs
but the touchpad also goes thru the controller chip so if it still works,
suggests bad keys


RE: Keyboard woes continue but somewhat improved - kendew - 10-27-2020

The touchpad has never been a problem. As for xinput, 'xinput list' will list the devices, and they can be disabled/enabled by ID. The touchpad is considered a separate device. If it is bad keys, which I'm thinking now too, what would a solution be, I wonder?


RE: Keyboard woes continue but somewhat improved - wdt - 10-27-2020

At worst, pine has new top covers, some have changed iso -> ansi,, tricky
And someone has taken off key caps to clean out trash, solved their problem
But that was only one key, so...... could it be a LOT of trash?