Wierd keyboard issue

[MrEngman]

The CapsLock LED on my keyboard will not change state after my Pi has booted when I press the Capslock key. The ScrollLock and NumLock keys and LEDs behave as expected.

When using my Pi I'd noticed that the CapsLock LED would not turn on even though I was able to change from lower case to upper case and back again using the CapsLock key.

I've tried it plugged directly into the Pi USB port and through a couple of different powered hubs - no change.

Plugging it into my Windows laptop and every thing is OK. Pressing Capslock, Numlock or ScrollLock and the relevant LED will turn on or off as expected.

Now for the REALLY wierd bit. Just for fun I tried pressing the CapsLock key while the Pi was booting up just after turning on the power to the Pi. Part way through the boot process the CapsLock LED started turning on and off when CapsLock was pressed. Then at a certain stage the LED would stop changing state and remained either off or on depending on what state it had been in when it stop changing state.

Regardless of the state the LED after booting and logging in, it could be on or off, it stays in that state when I use the CapsLock key but typing on the keyboard and text changes to upper or lower case as expected.

Before people start muttering about power issues I use a switched mode PSU to power my Pi and other than the LED not changing state it works perfectly well.

Personally, I think it's some wierd software issue. I don't know how keyboards work and would normally expect the LEDS to be controlled internally by the keyboard electronics, but as its a USB keyboard is it possible commands can be sent to the keyboard that could disable the LED function for example. Looking at the output from dmesg it looks lke the LED stops changing state shortly after being registered by the USB code.

Any ideas? Would be nice to get it fixed.

Just looked here http://www.usb.org/developers/hidpage#H ... tor%20Tool and it looks like the keyboard leds can be controlled over the USB - so what is Debian doing?

[mahjongg]

Yes, pressing a key (capslock), and turning on and off a keyboard led are independent things, it only software that turns on the capslock LED when you press capslock.
So yes, it could well be a "weird software thing".

[MrEngman]

Yes, pressing a key (capslock), and turning on and off a keyboard led are independent things, it only software that turns on the capslock LED when you press capslock.
So yes, it could well be a "weird software thing".

After hunting around for a while I found a section of /etc/init.d/kbd where LEDs are set and commented it out just to see what would happen and it made no difference. Oh well, just have to keep on looking. I really would like CapsLock, and the LED, to work as I expect it to.

Thanks

[Peter Ryan]

I have the same issue with my keyboard - a cheapy Microsoft Wired Keyboard 200. Also strange is that when I "startx" it works.