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Jaoqua
May 24th, 2008, 10:16 PM
Problem with a key mapping:

I'm an Ubuntu noob and I've been installing all sorts of stuff to see what's any good. Most of it gets removed again, but in between I have set up key preferences for various things, now forgotten.

The problem is than now my machine doesn't let me type shift-c. All the other capitals work OK (see!) and if I use caps lock then I get C perfectly well. But shift-c gives me nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. When I type shift-c the cursor blinks briefly signifying that the machine knows a key has been pressed, but I get no character.

How can I find and correct the key mapping? It looks to me like it's been redirected to some other purpose, but heaven knows what.

Since I'm a noob please make your answers explicit. I have looked at the forums and there are bits of stuff about key mapping but I can't seem to follow their instructions. Stupidity? Lack of knowlege? Probably both. Please respond accordingly.

Thx.

- J.

mali2297
May 25th, 2008, 11:59 AM
Open a terminal and type (or copy/paste)


xmodmap -pke | head -n 50

Post the output.

Jaoqua
May 25th, 2008, 12:36 PM
Thanks for your interest, Mali. Here's the output:
keycode 8 =
keycode 9 = Escape
keycode 10 = 1 exclam onesuperior exclamdown onesuperior exclamdown
keycode 11 = 2 quotedbl twosuperior oneeighth twosuperior oneeighth
keycode 12 = 3 sterling threesuperior sterling threesuperior sterling
keycode 13 = 4 dollar EuroSign onequarter EuroSign onequarter
keycode 14 = 5 percent onehalf threeeighths onehalf threeeighths
keycode 15 = 6 asciicircum threequarters fiveeighths threequarters fiveeighths
keycode 16 = 7 ampersand braceleft seveneighths braceleft seveneighths
keycode 17 = 8 asterisk bracketleft trademark bracketleft trademark
keycode 18 = 9 parenleft bracketright plusminus bracketright plusminus
keycode 19 = 0 parenright braceright degree braceright degree
keycode 20 = minus underscore backslash questiondown backslash questiondown
keycode 21 = equal plus dead_cedilla dead_ogonek dead_cedilla dead_ogonek
keycode 22 = BackSpace Terminate_Server
keycode 23 = Tab ISO_Left_Tab
keycode 24 = q Q at Greek_OMEGA at Greek_OMEGA
keycode 25 = w W lstroke Lstroke lstroke Lstroke
keycode 26 = e E
keycode 27 = r R paragraph registered paragraph registered
keycode 28 = t T tslash Tslash tslash Tslash
keycode 29 = y Y leftarrow yen leftarrow yen
keycode 30 = u U downarrow uparrow downarrow uparrow
keycode 31 = i I rightarrow idotless rightarrow idotless
keycode 32 = o O oslash Oslash oslash Oslash
keycode 33 = p P thorn THORN thorn THORN
keycode 34 = bracketleft braceleft dead_diaeresis dead_abovering dead_diaeresis dead_abovering
keycode 35 = bracketright braceright dead_tilde dead_macron dead_tilde dead_macron
keycode 36 = Return
keycode 37 = Control_L
keycode 38 = a A ae AE ae AE
keycode 39 = s S ssharp section ssharp section
keycode 40 = d D eth ETH eth ETH
keycode 41 = f F dstroke ordfeminine dstroke ordfeminine
keycode 42 = g G eng ENG eng ENG
keycode 43 = h H hstroke Hstroke hstroke Hstroke
keycode 44 = j J
keycode 45 = k K kra ampersand kra ampersand
keycode 46 = l L lstroke Lstroke lstroke Lstroke
keycode 47 = semicolon colon dead_acute dead_doubleacute dead_acute dead_doubleacute
keycode 48 = apostrophe at dead_circumflex dead_caron dead_circumflex dead_caron
keycode 49 = grave notsign bar bar bar bar
keycode 50 = Shift_L
keycode 51 = numbersign asciitilde dead_grave dead_breve dead_grave dead_breve
keycode 52 = z Z guillemotleft less guillemotleft less
keycode 53 = x X guillemotright greater guillemotright greater
keycode 54 = c C cent copyright cent copyright
keycode 55 = v V leftdoublequotemark leftsinglequotemark leftdoublequotemark leftsinglequotemark
keycode 56 = b B rightdoublequotemark rightsinglequotemark rightdoublequotemark rightsinglequotemark
keycode 57 = n N

I'm guessing this was the line you were after:
keycode 54 = c C cent copyright cent copyright

Looks OK to me. Still no C though. But interestingly yesterday I set up a guest account for my daughter to use and all works well there. So it's clearly a user-specific problem.

mali2297
May 25th, 2008, 12:58 PM
Looks OK to me. Still no C though. But interestingly yesterday I set up a guest account for my daughter to use and all works well there. So it's clearly a user-specific problem.

Your user-specific settings are stored in hidden "dot" files in your home directory. Create a backup folder and move the hidden files and directories there. Then either start from scratch or move back the old configuration files one by one while checking that the problem does not reappear.

Jaoqua
May 27th, 2008, 04:47 PM
Pheew!! What a load of hassle that was!

Anyway, it worked, so thanks! The problem was under .gconf. I never really found out what it was, even though I looked through a thousand xml files. In the end I merged my way out of it by accident. Ignorance and luck prevailed.

Thanks!