After running vmplayer I loose functionality of the Alt key. When pressing Alt+F4 on a terminal window I get ';3S' printed. Other weird characters do happen using different key combos. If I look at the keycodes through 'xev' they seem correct. It must be something related to HAL. Alt+Tab is not working because of this.
Correction: I think the problem is in some interaction with Xorg (I have xorg-server-1.3.0.0-r6) because if I restart Xorg it goes away. It should still not happen in 1st place. I will post here my 'emerge --info' (same as http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=233783#c2): Portage 2.1.4.4 (default-linux/x86/2007.0/desktop, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.6.1-r0, 2.6.25-gentoo-r6 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.25-gentoo-r6 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1600MHz Timestamp of tree: Sun, 03 Aug 2008 10:15:01 +0000 ccache version 2.4 [disabled] app-shells/bash: 3.2_p33 dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.1.6 dev-lang/python: 2.4.4-r13, 2.5.2-r6 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6 dev-util/ccache: 2.4-r7 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1-r2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.61-r2 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r3 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.26 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.23-r3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-m -mtune=pentium-m -pipe -msse -msse2 -mmmx" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-m -mtune=pentium-m -pipe -msse -msse2 -mmmx" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/ http://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/linux/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/linux/gentoo/ " LANG="it_IT.UTF-8" LC_ALL="it_IT.UTF-8" LINGUAS="it en" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/local/overlays/oss-overlay" SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="7zip X acl acpi alsa apache2 asf bash-completion berkdb cairo cdr cli cracklib crypt curl dbus dga directfb divx dri dvd dvdr dvdread emboss encode evo fam fbcon ffmpeg firefox flac flash fortran gdbm gif glib gmp gpm gstreamer hal i810 iconv ipv6 isdnlog java jpeg jpeg2k lame ldap mad midi mikmod mmx mmx2 mono mozilla moznopango mp3 mp4 mpeg mpeg2 msn mudflap mysqli ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg ogg123 opengl openmp pam pcre pdf perl php png pppd python qt3support quicktime readline real reflection samba sdl session slang spell spl sse sse2 ssl svg tcpd tga theora threadsafe tiff truetype type1 unicode utf8 vorbis wmw wxwindows x86 xcb xml xorg xulrunner xv xvid zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic auth_digest authn_anon authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock dbd deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers ident imagemap include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation proxy proxy_ajp proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_http rewrite setenvif so speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse synaptics evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="it en" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="i810 vesa" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LDFLAGS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
I have evdev driver enabled for my USB mouse, however not for the keyboard. I don't know if it might be relevant for this bug or bug #201922
I meant to say bug #233783 in previous comment
Please take a look at https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/124406/comments/147. It may offer a potential workaround for stuck keys. Otherwise I'm not sure what's causing it. I have the feeling it's not specific to vmware, and may be replicated with other programs (dosbox, for instance). I'd have a wider search around on the internet to try and locate more information on the problem...
Also https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/195982 may be of use.
@Mike: this bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/linux/+bug/124406/comments/147 is related to another long-time bug of mine (http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9147), weird that I found it this way. I think it's not related to the current one (to be totally sure I should boot with acpi=off, but I currently do not have any ACPI module loaded and I can also exclude that the bugs are related because with a previous version of VMware player (1.x) I was not experiencing the problem. Futhermore, this is not a 'stuck keys' problem, but a problem regarding keys not being translated correctly e.g. there is no event duplication. The second bug is instead very intesting (expecially https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/195982/comments/151). I will now use the script 'while true; do xmodmap -pm; sleep 5; done' to see if the modifier map is not restored after quitting vmplayer.
Created attachment 162098 [details] xmodmap -pm output The xmodmaprc modifiers are (apparently) restored correctly. Maybe this problem is due to the fact that my XFCE session is started by a non-root user and that then I use 'su' in an xterm and then run vmplayer?
Daniele, You can run vmware player as any user who is a member of the vmware group. The only elements of vmware that must be run as root is the startup script (/etc/init.d/vmware start). Please remember though, that the user will have to be a member of the vmware group before you can run it. You can find out what groups you're a member of by typing groups at the command line...
Yes, that's not the problem. I am now running vmplayer as non-root (I had to give proper permissions to /dev/hda and not only to the interested partition /dev/hda7 as I initally thought) but the Alt key problem is still there.
Any update on this? I confirm that the only workaround is to close the X server and start it again.
Created attachment 166840 [details] strace -o exult_strace_crash.log exult and then kill -9 $(pgrep exult)
Comment on attachment 166840 [details] strace -o exult_strace_crash.log exult and then kill -9 $(pgrep exult) sorry, I posted it on the wrong bug tracker...
The bug seems fixed in version 2.0.5.109488
