"Sticky keyboard" fault?

[Tim]

On Tue, 2013-04-23 at 17:59 -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> I recently got a pop-up say "Sticky keyboard - disabled" and my keyboard stopped 
> working. My first reaction was that the message was translated to English, and 
> "stuck key" became "sticky keyboard." Can't think of a sensor for that.
> 
> In any case, keyboard was *WAY* disabled, plugging in a USB keyboard didn't 
> help, ssh from another machine didn't help (keystrtokes not accepted), and I 
> finally had to reboot the machine, after migrating all the guests elsewhere or 
> shutting them down. Major PITA.

I would say that it's not stuck key, but the sticky key feature for
helping the disabled (one of those slow typing aids).  It's turned on or
off by holding the shift key down for an extended period (and just the
sort of thing typists will do who don't use the capslock).

In my case, when activated, the notification window would always appear
behind the current window, and there'd be no clue that it'd done that.
Suddenly the keyboard wouldn't work any more, as the computer's waiting
for me to respond the hidden notification window (this is a bad design,
in itself).  Once I cottoned on to that, any time that the keyboard was
locked out, I'd minimise windows for the applications I was using,
one-by-one, until I found the hidden notification window.

> So is there (supposed to be) a way to clear that? And how does the driver tell a 
> stuck key from a user holding a key, like a gamer holding down "F" to fire 
> weapons, as I've seen them do. How is it detected, and please may I make it not 
> do that? Recovery by boot is a Windows technology, they might have it patented.

I've yet to see anything attempt it, but (without pondering about any
ramifications) it sounds a useful thing.  I've certainly come across
times where a jammed key has caused a problem.  In my case, it's usually
something falling on the keyboard, but I've used other people's
keyboards where the keyboard has been damaged.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

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