Keyboard suddenly stopped working at gdm login screen

[Atlantic-Aurora]

I have had a problem since updating yesterday at the gdm login screen on LM 11. My keyboard is not working at the gdm login screen, and when I try to type my password, nothing happens, so I cannot log in from there. I can login from a command prompt, and then issue startx to get the GUI, except that the gnome panels are missing, so I have to start them with the terminal. There were some updates yesterday, but I don't remember what they were.
Has anyone else had this problem? Could it be a bug, or just a glitch in my system?
So:
1) If someone can please tell me what the most recent updates were, I could try to reinstall them.
2) Is there a log file somewhere which will tell me what was updated on 30th January?
3) Which configuration file can I alter so that the gnome-panel automatically comes up at boot time, even if I have to login at a command prompt, and then use the startx command.
Thanks for any help.

[DrHu]

and then issue startx to get the GUI, except that the gnome panels are missing, so I have to start them with the terminal.

And when you start the Gnome desktop manager, your screen is normal, so it won't be a graphics problem ?

All log files are in /var/log
--if you know the program you used to install the packages updates; check that name for an appropriate log and see what it shows

• And if you used a gui program, such as Mintupdate or Synaptic or other
  --you should be able withing those programs ,menu structures see updated packages, I don't know if you can sort them by date or by latest, but you probably can, and if so it will be fairly obvious from menus available to you

So either use their package manager or if you want a terminal, using dpkg to get the status of packages install etc..
--if you look through apt via the man page

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 man apt

--you will get a list of options that should be able to show you the data, and you can redirect that screen result into a *.txt file, eg
http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/linux/
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux/sh ... or-debian/
the command > /home/installed.txt
--or--
the command (you want to use) >/tmp/installed.txt
--/tmp gets deleted on a reboot, but presumably you only would need the data for a short time to check package status

• For the terminal either dpkg or apt should work..

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/s ... mand-line/

• Using aptitude --another command line package manager), similar to apt but menu driven: some people like it some don't..

[Atlantic-Aurora]

Thanks, that is helpful. Yes the log file I needed was /var/log/dpkg.log
I found a bunch of xorg files that were upgraded, (the dpkg log file does give the date), so I reinstalled them, but it has not made any difference, the problems remain.

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apt-get install --reinstall packages

There is some other stuff - abiword files, which I shall uninstall now and see if they are conflicting.
---------------------------------------------
No, uninstalling the abiword stuff that I installed made no difference.
Reinstalling gdm made no difference. Is gdm not pulling in or seeing a keyboard configuration file?
Things were so much easier when we could tinker with the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
The problem remains. Could it be a permissions thing? Could a keyboard configuration file somewhere have the wrong permissions? If so, which?

No it is not a graphics problem, the screen starts normally, minus the 2 gnome panels. Where can I ensure that the gnome panels start automatically for all users?

[Atlantic-Aurora]

OK, I can start gnome-panel on a user by user basis by configuring and adding a gnome-panel.desktop file, (in which the critical line is "Exec=gnome-desktop %u), in each ~/.config/autostart folder. But how would I do this for all users irrespectively? Where in the /etc folder should this file go?
But that has not solved the main problem that the keyboard is still not working at the gdm login screen. Ideas, anyone?

[mal_251]

OK, I can start gnome-panel on a user by user basis by configuring and adding a gnome-panel.desktop file, (in which the critical line is "Exec=gnome-desktop %u), in each ~/.config/autostart folder. But how would I do this for all users irrespectively? Where in the /etc folder should this file go?
But that has not solved the main problem that the keyboard is still not working at the gdm login screen. Ideas, anyone?

Howdy!
I can't offer any new ideas as yet, but thought perhaps you may not feel so isolated if someone reported they are also experiencing the same symptoms.
Our laptop has four users so we rather need the 'greeter' screen to select user and then supply the password.
As a temporary work around we boot in recovery mode and modify /etc/gdm/custom.conf as the following :-
AutomaticLoginEnable=true (for multi user login this would be set to 'false')
AutomaticLogin=username (user name of whomever needs to login at that time)
Then issue command 'service gdm start'.

This gets the nominated user into their desktop environment with everything working perfectly.
No, the above is not pretty and is more than a little clumsy especially when you have several people all wishing to access their email !!

If who ever is currently logged in leaves the laptop for a period of time so that the screen saver has kicked in they must enter their password to continue. Interestingly, the entry of a password on this screen is fine. However if they were to logout so another family member can login we are back to the 'greeter' screen and a not being able to enter a password.

Like you I have trolled through various log files looking for something suspicious.
We pulled in some xserver-xorg updates on the 14/2 but we already had the problem. Can't see anything prior to this that would have done the damage.
Have found the odd post in a couple of forums we people are reporting problems with the 'greeter' window after they switched from auto login to a password login.
We have never used the auto login feature. (Until we needed to as a work around)
Didn't go as far as reinstalling gdm, but have copied objects related to gdm-greeter-login-window-ui from the Mint 11 live cd to our laptop but this hasn't helped.
I'll post back with anything useful. Really hoping we don't have to reinstall !!

[wvperegrine]

The solution for me proved very simple, and I hope it's this simple for you. At the bottom right of the gdm login screen, under the accessibility panel, the "Slow Keys" function was enabled. I'm sure I did not enable it, but unchecking that box made my keyboard dysfunction disappear.

Worked correctly immediately. The fix persisted after reboot.

[mal_251]

Many thanks wvperegrine, that did the trick !
Thanks again for your post.
Cheers!