Sometimes Caps Lock works inverted

What's the make and model of your keyboard? This is most likely a hardware issue, but a workaround probably could be found.
Triage recommendation: Wishlist

This happens in a dell notebook, and two desktops: one with a genius keyboard and the other one with a generic keyboard. All of them with Spanish layout. This is not a Wishlist, this is a bug.

I can confirm this behaviour and yes it is a BUG.
I'm running Hardy Heron, English on a Sony VAIO TX notebook.

Currently the Caps Lock light is on, but I'm typing as if it is off. If I turn it off then everything comes up in capitals.

The only thing I can think they may have caused it was that I was working on an Open Office document. I think I may have accidently typed a sentence that began something like "tHERE WAS", ie, I had accidently turned on caps lock. Open Office autocorrected this to "There was" and should have toggled my caps off... well it did toggle it off "logically", but the light was still on and it was inverted from there (I haven't restarted again yet).

I'll test this on another machine and will post if indeed this was the cause.

Sorry, should also mention that I've tried the usual tricks I would try under Windows. That is, sometimes under Windows you get the behaviour where the OS gets confused and doesn't recognize a key-release on something like the shift key, and thus when you type it capitalises everything. You get around this by pressing each likely logically "stuck" key and it eventually toggles off.
I pressed each of my shifts, ctrls and alts just in case. No difference.

If I run 'xev', and press 'c' (but with my caps on, which results in a lowercase 'c' due to inversion) I get the following

KeyPress event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x4800001,
    root 0x67, subw 0x0, time 172316092, (-306,483), root:(202,536),
    state 0x0, keycode 54 (keysym 0x63, c), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (63) "c"
    XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (63) "c"
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x4800001,
    root 0x67, subw 0x0, time 172316215, (-306,483), root:(202,536),
    state 0x0, keycode 54 (keysym 0x63, c), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (63) "c"
    XFilterEvent returns: False

Just go into OpenOffice Writer, turn your caps lock key on, type a letter, turn it back off, and type the rest of a sentence. CAPS Lock should be back to normal:)

It also happens on many systems like Windows, because the writing software can autochange the "capslocking" just as chaanakya said. It's a bug that the light doesn't change, but the changing behaiviour is not a bug.

Just type something with the caps lock light off (but on caps) with OpenOffice and it'll be corrected, eg, with the light of caps lock off, type tHERE and tadá, it will be autocorrected and the lights fixed.

Please try running these commands from the console (CTRL + ALT + F1 and login):
setleds +caps
setleds -caps

And report if your lights change on the keyboard.

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 10:23 PM, Luke Faraone wrote:
> Please try running these commands from the console (CTRL + ALT + F1 and login):
> setleds +caps
> setleds -caps

Sorry, I don't have OpenOffice2 any more to check this... I tried with
OpenOffice3 but on it, when I write tHERE, it is changed to THERE
instead of change my caps lock... So, I can test it.

I tested these commands and I get my caps look changed (setleds +caps
set caps lock on, with the light on and setleds -caps set caps lock
off, with the light off)

Please, if someone can try it, with the bug, could be helpful.

Cheers.

confirming the bug, Ubuntu/Gnome on x86-64. My keyboard is a Samsung PleoMax (I got a new keyboard and installed 8.10 at roughly the same time, so I'm not sure which is responsible for this bug).

Its indeed not a shift-key that's "stuck" inside, as both shifts are pressed/unpressed it still occurs.

When using ctrl-alt-f1 and back to X alt-f7, the caps-lock led is returned to its correct status, but when caps-lock is pressed again, its inverted again.

Confirming based on all the reports and changing Importance from Wishlist as this is not a new feature request.

I can also confirm this bug when using OpenOffice.org 2.4 on two desktops and a laptop (all UK keyboards if that makes any difference) as reported by Brendan Grieve above. It occurs under both Hardy and Intrepid.

The relevant feature of OpenOffice.org is under 'Tools > AutoCorrect...'. Under the 'Options' tab it is 'Correct accidental use of cAPS LOCK key'.

With this option enabled (as it is by default), I can reproduce the bug as follows:
1. Turn on Caps Lock
2. Type 'tHE' (holding Shift on the first letter).
3. Type a space.

OpenOffice.org corrects the word to 'The' and turns off Caps Lock but the Caps Lock LED on the keyboard remains lit.

Should this bug be filed against 'openoffice.org' or 'xserver-xorg-input-keyboard' instead of 'linux'?

I think that this is a duplicate of Bug #227326.

I can confirm this on Kubuntu 9.10, didn't launched Openoffice in this session and working in single display config so it has nothing to deal with it.
While led turned on typing on console small letters gives me:
nusch@novopad:~$ setleds -caps
KDGKBLED: Invalid argument
Error reading current flags setting. Maybe you are not on the console?
nusch@novopad:~$ sudo setleds -caps
KDGKBLED: Invalid argument
Error reading current flags setting. Maybe you are not on the console?
Typing it in console solves the problem but after pressing Capslock two times it's back to previous state

Using laptop built-in keyboard, it happend in previous revisions of Kubuntu but it happens rather rare.

I'm running Ubuntu Karmic. I use caps lock to toggle between US and Thai keyboard layouts. Sometimes it would bizarrely change so that anything I typed in English was in capitals...with obviously no way to switch back to non capitals, as caps lock just switched to Thai layout.

Through random bashing of my keyboard in gedit, I found the magic combination:

SHIFT+CAPS LOCK

ssssSSSSSSSSSSSSSSaaaaaaaa

Whoops, was mashing my keys out of frustration because I've just been bit by this issue in Ubuntu 9.10 x64 on a Dell M1730 using a Logitech G15 keyboard using the Logitech G15 layout.

As I was typing this, I was just able to fix the issue by playing with the caps lock key on my laptop's built-in keyboard. It appears that somehow Ubuntu is tracking caps lock semi-independently on each keyboard, but sometimes gets confused.

Interestingly, NumLock seems to be synchronized between the two keyboards, while scroll lock does nothing (light doesn't come on).

I get the same problem, using an external keyboard (SGI) with lenovo laptop and ubuntu 9.10 - but I'm guessing this is not a hardware issue, or an open office issue at all. Here's what I see:

type on external keyboard

wITH CAPS LOCK ON LAPTOP (LAPTOP LED IS ON)

caps lock off on laptop (laptop led is off)

cAPS LOCK ON LAPTOP (LAPTOP LED IS ON)

caps lock on external keyboard (both leds on)

In other words, the laptop keyboard and the external keyboard caps locks are being treated independently.

There may be a clue in the observation that when turning the caps lock on via the laptop keyboard, the first letter is typed in lower case, and subsequent letters are in upper case

I got the same issue sometimes with Desktop PC, PS2 keyboard. This is related to some kind of bug in compiz or nome session too because this problem is also related to PC freezes or spontaneously restarts. This happens in my wife's desktop PC and it's been 1 week from the fresh lucid install. I'll send some bug report as soon as i have them,

regards,

I confirm the bug. I've got Ubuntu 10.04 installed on my ASUS laptop and I'm using the external USB keyboard. The only LED, which works synchronously on both keyboards is Num lock. This is annoying, cause I use Scroll lock to indicate an additional layout. If i set Num lock LED to indicate layout, it stops to work synchronously too. The same thing is on my desktop PC with two keyboards - PS/2 and USB. The second OS at the desktop is Windows 7 and it's everything OK with LEDs there.

Yup still happening to me on my Dell M4400 laptop with 10.10 x64 running Gnome.

This inversion happens to me after login, and now I can't even get to the console - blank screen with nothing responding other than the switch back to the X session.

Still happening on 11.10. I have a Dell Vostro V13 notebook with an external USB keyboard. Pressing CAPS LOCK on the external keyboard toggles the led on the external keyboard, but not on the notebook itself. Similarly, pressing the CAPS LOCK key on the internal keyboard toggles the notebook's led, but not the one on the external keyboard. The same occurs with NUM LOCK.

If I press CAPS LOCK on the external keyboard, the system enters CAPS LOCK state: typing produces upper case letters. If I then press CAPS LOCK on the internal keyboard, the system exits CAPS LOCK state: typing produces lower case letters, while both CAPS LOCK leds are on.

This "fixes" the problem for me.

~$ setleds -caps
KDGKBLED: Invalid argument
Error reading current flags setting. Maybe you are not on the console?
~$ xmodmap -e "remove lock = Caps_Lock"
~$ setxkbmap -option

Now type random letters in the terminal and sometimes with SHIFT down. The caps lock will then go away after 20-30 chars.

Alejandro Díaz-Caro, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p linux <replace-with-bug-number>

Also, could you please test the latest upstream kernel available following https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds ? It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Please do not test the daily folder, but the one all the way at the bottom. Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please comment on which kernel version specifically you tested. If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tags:
kernel-fixed-upstream
kernel-fixed-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

where VERSION-NUMBER is the version number of the kernel you tested. For example:
kernel-fixed-upstream-v3.11-rc5

This can be done by clicking on the yellow circle with a black pencil icon next to the word Tags located at the bottom of the bug description. As well, please remove the tag:
needs-upstream-testing

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the following tags:
kernel-bug-exists-upstream
kernel-bug-exists-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

As well, please remove the tag:
needs-upstream-testing

If you are unable to test the mainline kernel, please comment as to why specifically you were unable to test it and add the following tags:
kernel-unable-to-test-upstream
kernel-unable-to-test-upstream-VERSION-NUMBER

Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug's Status as Confirmed. Please let us know your results. Thank you for your understanding.

i think it has something to do with the "caps light" i pressed caps lock key so many times faster and it somehow fixed the ligh and now it's off and i can finaly type lowercase with the "caps lock light off" (suggest using notepad while doing this)

psp700, if you have a bug in Ubuntu, the Ubuntu Kernel team, Ubuntu Bug Control team, and Ubuntu Bug Squad would like you to please file a new report by executing the following in a terminal while booted into a Ubuntu repository kernel (not a mainline one) via:
ubuntu-bug linux

For more on this, please read the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu Bug Control and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Kernel Team: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelTeamBugPolicies#Filing_Kernel_Bug_reports
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Please note, not filing a new report would delay your problem being addressed as quickly as possible.

No need exists to comment here at this time. After reading the above documentation in it's entirety, if you have further questions, you are welcome to redirect them to the appropriate mailing list or forum via http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/mailinglists , or you may contact me directly.

Thank you for your understanding.

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