Bug 15133

Summary: "mouse keys turns on randomly"
Product: xorg Reporter: Sense Hofstede <sense>
Component: Input/KeyboardAssignee: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Status: RESOLVED INVALID QA Contact: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Severity: normal    
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: Other   
OS: All   
URL: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/192508
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:

Description Sense Hofstede 2008-03-19 12:40:34 UTC 
At launchpad William Woelke wrote:
"I am using Hardy Heron and several times now I have tried to use my number pad only to discover that they now move the mouse. I don't know if there is a short cut key I am hitting on accident, but it is rather annoying. Then sometimes when I disable mouse keys, the numlock becomes switched so that the system thinks numlock is on when the light is off and vice-versa."

John added:
"

I've been having this problem too on 7.10. If there is a short-cut key to turn this on and off, it should be documented and have the option to disable it.

In "Keyboard Accessibility Preferences", I have the "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences" unchecked. The "Enable Mouse Keys" checkbox is usually unchecked and inactive. However, whenever mouse keys turns itself on, the "Enable Mouse Keys" checkbox becomes checked and inactive even though the "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences" checkbox remains unchecked.

Apparently, mouse keys does not respect the state of the "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences" checkbox. It will become enabled even though I've in spite of my preferences.

To disable mouse keys I have to check "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences" (to make "Enable Mouse Keys" active) , uncheck "Enable Mouse Keys" and then uncheck "Enable keyboard accessibility preferences".

Too many steps to disable a feature that shouldn't be enabled in the first place."  

Denis Washington explained it this way at GNOME(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=519713):
"The problem is that the XkbAccessKeys flag, which we set to enable or disable
the accessibility feature shortcuts, is not respected for the mouse keys
shortcut in the X.org server. So to fix this, XkbAccessKeys should also toggle
the mouse key shorcut. In any case, this is a problem with the X servers and
the XKB specification and not one of gnome-control-center, so I this bug should
probably be marked NOTGNOME."

If you need more information, please look in the bug reports at GNOME and Launchpad and if you need more don't hesitate to ask. At the moment more information is being gathered at Launchpad.

Sense Hofstede
Comment 1 Sense Hofstede 2008-03-19 12:41:38 UTC 
I forgot to post the URL to the bug report in Launchpad:
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/192508

Have fun ;)
Comment 2 Sergey V. Udaltsov 2008-03-19 14:40:26 UTC 
This has nothing to do with xkeyboard-config. It is a problem of X server, I guess
Comment 3 Daniel Stone 2008-03-20 05:31:10 UTC 
Actually, the problem is probably just forgetting to copy around AccessX flags.
Comment 5 Sense Hofstede 2008-04-02 05:10:44 UTC 
Someone who confirmed the bug has also posted his Xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log This are the links:
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/13034452/xorg.conf
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/13034474/Xorg.0.log
Comment 6 Sense Hofstede 2008-04-16 06:19:55 UTC 
The shortkey has been found: Shift+Num Lock
Comment 7 Peter Hutterer 2008-07-17 18:20:14 UTC 
I spent some time investigating this and found some weird code that I don't
understand:

xkbi->desc->ctrls->ctrls_enabled is a bitmask of the enabled features. If I
disable MouseKeys for a device, bit 0x16 is set to 0.

from xkb/xkbActions.c:_XkbFilterControls

--------------------------
        [...]

	change= XkbActionCtrls(&pAction->ctrls); /* 16 for mouse keys */

        [...]

	if (pAction->type==XkbSA_LockControls) {
	    filter->priv= (ctrls->enabled_ctrls&change);
	    change&= ~ctrls->enabled_ctrls;  /* change stays 16 */
	}

	if (change) { /* always true */
	    xkbControlsNotify	cn;
	    XkbSrvLedInfoPtr	sli;

	    ctrls->enabled_ctrls|= change; /* yay - re-enabled it */

            [...]
------------------

once this code is run, enabled_ctrls has XkbMouseKeysMask is set, no matter what.
This code hasn't changed in years, so I don't really see how that has ever
worked in the first place.
Comment 8 Daniel Stone 2008-07-20 20:44:37 UTC 
(In reply to comment #6)
> The shortkey has been found: Shift+Num Lock

hang on, do you mean that pressing shift+numlock is the only thing which triggers this? if so, well, yes ... that's how mousekeys are enabled, by pressing shift+numlock.
Comment 9 Peter Hutterer 2008-07-20 21:49:38 UTC 
Disregard my Comment #7, I misinterpreted the specs and the code at the same
time. Back to the drawing board.
Comment 10 Sense Hofstede 2009-11-05 07:50:56 UTC 
Does anyone know what's the status of this bug? Is it a genuine bug and if so, what needs to be done to solve it?
Comment 11 Adam Jackson 2018-06-12 19:07:07 UTC 
Mass closure: This bug has been untouched for more than six years, and is not
obviously still valid. Please reopen this bug or file a new report if you continue to experience issues with current releases.

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