Keyboard cutting off soon after launching X

[Daniel P. Wright]

Hello,

I am having issues with my keyboard running FreeBSD 9-RELEASE.  It is
recognised fine by the system and works within the console (outside of X),
but within a couple of minutes of X launching it stops working in X.  I can
still use ctrl-alt-F1 (or whatever) to break back out to the console, and
from there can kill X and relaunch.  It cuts out within a minute or so
every time though, so the computer is pretty much unusable under X.

I've seen similar problems on the FreeBSD forums, and tried to follow the
advice there, namely:

1) Ensuring the half and dubs daemons are running
2) Setting [Option  "AutoAddDevices"  "Off"] in xorg.conf
3) Setting [Option  "AutoEnableDevices" "Off"] in xorg.conf (which is
advised against but I was getting desperate)

None of it has been of any help.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated
as my computer is pretty much unusable as it is.

Thanks,

Dani.

PS - Apologies if this email is formatted strangely; I am having to use the
gmail interface and I have no idea what they do to their mails.
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[Warren Block]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012, Daniel P. Wright wrote:

> I am having issues with my keyboard running FreeBSD 9-RELEASE.  It is
> recognised fine by the system and works within the console (outside of X),
> but within a couple of minutes of X launching it stops working in X.  I can
> still use ctrl-alt-F1 (or whatever) to break back out to the console, and
> from there can kill X and relaunch.  It cuts out within a minute or so
> every time though, so the computer is pretty much unusable under X.
>
> I've seen similar problems on the FreeBSD forums, and tried to follow the
> advice there, namely:
>
> 1) Ensuring the half and dubs daemons are running

hald and dbus...

> 2) Setting [Option  "AutoAddDevices"  "Off"] in xorg.conf

This tells X not to use hald.  If you window manager/desktop environment
does not require hald, not running hald at all might fix the problem.
dbus can be kept.  AFAIK, xfce is the only desktop environment that
doesn't need hald, but all the simpler window managers should be fine.
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[Erich Dollansky-2]

Hi,

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 08:17:27 -0600 (MDT)
Warren Block <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Jul 2012, Daniel P. Wright wrote:
>
> > I am having issues with my keyboard running FreeBSD 9-RELEASE.  It
> > is recognised fine by the system and works within the console
> > (outside of X), but within a couple of minutes of X launching it
> > stops working in X.  I can still use ctrl-alt-F1 (or whatever) to
> > break back out to the console, and from there can kill X and
> > relaunch.  It cuts out within a minute or so every time though, so
> > the computer is pretty much unusable under X.
> >
> > I've seen similar problems on the FreeBSD forums, and tried to
> > follow the advice there, namely:
> >
> > 1) Ensuring the half and dubs daemons are running
>
> hald and dbus...
>
> > 2) Setting [Option  "AutoAddDevices"  "Off"] in xorg.conf
>
> This tells X not to use hald.  If you window manager/desktop
> environment does not require hald, not running hald at all might fix
> the problem. dbus can be kept.  AFAIK, xfce is the only desktop
> environment that doesn't need hald, but all the simpler window
> managers should be fine.

I ran FreeBSD since 8 on this machine but I have had to start finding a
new setting for xorg.conf to make X working again after a recent
upgrade.

Enable moused in rc.conf and the following from xorg.conf helped me this
time:

#
# 24.07.12 ed: we enable the mouse and see what will happen.
#
Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "X.org Configured"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer" # 24.07.12 ed:
enabled for 1.7.7 # InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option "AllowEmptyInput" "false" #
16.07.10 ed: enabled for 1.7.5 # 24.07.12 ed: disabled for 1.7.7
                                                                                                        #
16.07.12 ed: setting it to false
# freezes X until mouse
# moves #
Option "AutoAddDevices" "false" EndSection

I have had to define the mouse as InputDevice and set AllowEmptyInput
to false.

Just play with these settings and see what happens. Of course, focus on
the keyboard and not the mouse as I have had to do.

 Erich

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[Warren Block]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012, Erich Dollansky wrote:

> I ran FreeBSD since 8 on this machine but I have had to start finding a
> new setting for xorg.conf to make X working again after a recent
> upgrade.
>
> Enable moused in rc.conf and the following from xorg.conf helped me this
> time:
>
> #
> # 24.07.12 ed: we enable the mouse and see what will happen.
> #
> Section "ServerLayout"
> Identifier     "X.org Configured"
> Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
> InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer" # 24.07.12 ed:
> enabled for 1.7.7 # InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
> EndSection
>
> Section "ServerFlags"
> Option "AllowEmptyInput" "false" #
> 16.07.10 ed: enabled for 1.7.5 # 24.07.12 ed: disabled for 1.7.7
> #
> 16.07.12 ed: setting it to false
> # freezes X until mouse
> # moves #
> Option "AutoAddDevices" "false" EndSection
>
> I have had to define the mouse as InputDevice and set AllowEmptyInput
> to false.

The comment wrap there is very confusing.  But please stop using
AllowEmptyInput.  It was so misused that it has even been removed from
later versions of xorg.
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/aei.html

There is an interaction with hald and moused that makes it worthwhile
lately for some users to run moused from rc.conf.  There may be a
similar interaction with kbdmux(4) or some other keyboard component for
keyboards.

hald can be improved greatly by its absence.
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[Erich Dollansky-2]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:03:05 -0600 (MDT)
Hi,

Warren Block <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Jul 2012, Erich Dollansky wrote:
>
> > Enable moused in rc.conf and the following from xorg.conf helped me
> > this time:
> >
> > Option "AllowEmptyInput" "false" #

> The comment wrap there is very confusing.  But please stop using
> AllowEmptyInput.  It was so misused that it has even been removed
> from later versions of xorg.
> http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/aei.html
>
I have read this before. But what else would you do when the line above
solves the problem?

> There is an interaction with hald and moused that makes it worthwhile
> lately for some users to run moused from rc.conf.  There may be a

I wonder why.

> similar interaction with kbdmux(4) or some other keyboard component
> for keyboards.
>
> hald can be improved greatly by its absence.

Isn't this the case on some Linux machines?

Erich
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[Warren Block]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012, Erich Dollansky wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:03:05 -0600 (MDT)
> Hi,
>
> Warren Block <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 26 Jul 2012, Erich Dollansky wrote:
>>
>>> Enable moused in rc.conf and the following from xorg.conf helped me
>>> this time:
>>>
>>> Option "AllowEmptyInput" "false" #
>
>> The comment wrap there is very confusing.  But please stop using
>> AllowEmptyInput.  It was so misused that it has even been removed
>> from later versions of xorg.
>> http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/aei.html
>>
> I have read this before. But what else would you do when the line above
> solves the problem?

Personally, I would wonder why AutoAddDevices Off did not solve the
problem.  I've had more than a few people tell me that AEI worked for
them, and so there was no reason to try AutoAddDevices.  So far, no one
has reported that AEI worked but AutoAddDevices did not.

Failing that, I'd rebuild xorg-server with the HAL option disabled.  If
the desktop environment requires hald, it can still be run but will not
be used by xorg.

Which brings up another possibility: there could be something going on
with the input stream after xorg, some utility or part of a desktop
environment that has a bug that causes it to eat all keyboard events.
It might even be a portion of xorg that needs to be rebuilt.

>> There is an interaction with hald and moused that makes it worthwhile
>> lately for some users to run moused from rc.conf.  There may be a
>
> I wonder why.

Changes in the drivers, most likely.

>> similar interaction with kbdmux(4) or some other keyboard component
>> for keyboards.
>>
>> hald can be improved greatly by its absence.
>
> Isn't this the case on some Linux machines?

Many Linux systems have dumped hal for udev.
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[Daniel P. Wright]

Hello,

Thank you all for your replies.  I have finally managed to get the
machine up and running again -- the problem was not what I expected!

Following advice in this thread and around the internet, I tried:

1) Setting AutoAddDevices, etc in xorg.conf
2) Disabling HAL before starting X
3) Recompiling the X server without HAL support and removing hald_enable
   from rc.conf
4) Running X without an xorg.conf

All to no avail.  By the time point 3 hadn't worked, I was starting to
feel pretty suspicious of my theory that this was a problem with HAL...

Which is when I noticed a log message appearing sometimes,

    "Last message repeated 20 times"

I scrolled back up to see which message was being repeated so often, and
realised my error.  I had a script (taken from somewhere on the
internet), which was automatically logging me in on tty7 and launching
X.  It basically worked by adding the following into my .bash_profile:

    tty=$(tty)
    if [ "$tty" = "/dev/ttyv7" ]
    then
    startx
    logout
    fi

I had disabled that briefly in order to do some configuration which
required me to close X, but stupidly all I did was comment out the call
to "startx" rather than the whole if statement.  As a result tty7 was
constantly logging me in and out in the background.

Why this should cause the keyboard to cut out as described I'm not sure
(I would have expected the whole system just to run slowly), but
commenting out the entire if statement, or restoring the call to
"startx", solved the problem.

Many thanks again to everyone who replied.

-Dani.
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[Erich Dollansky-2]

Hi,

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:21:19 +0900
"Daniel P. Wright" <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Thank you all for your replies.  I have finally managed to get the
> machine up and running again -- the problem was not what I expected!

like always.
>
> 1) Setting AutoAddDevices, etc in xorg.conf
> 2) Disabling HAL before starting X
> 3) Recompiling the X server without HAL support and removing
> hald_enable from rc.conf
> 4) Running X without an xorg.conf
>
You really put the effort in.

> I had disabled that briefly in order to do some configuration which
> required me to close X, but stupidly all I did was comment out the
> call to "startx" rather than the whole if statement.  As a result
> tty7 was constantly logging me in and out in the background.
>
This is so cool. I really like it. Do not feel alone in a situation
like this. How often did this happen to us before?

Erich
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