infinite loop with PrintScreen

I have reproduced this bug using Edgy Eft and KDE. I was able to recover from it after about 18 screenshots opened.

It's unclear where the bug lies (possibly X), but definitely not GNOME, as it is reported to affect KDE as well. Moving to Ubuntu.

Indeed it looks like an X problem. Can verify with 'xinit xev -- :1'

OTOH starting multiple screenshot apps for a single _long_ press of PrintScreen is also wrong. Also X problem?

As a workaround gnome-screenshot could check if any other instances of itself are running and quit if this is the case. This is just an idea, I don't know if this is practicable.

Holding Alt+PrintScreen did bring up multiple instances of gnome-screenshot on Gutsy Gibbon. My system did not lock up but the multiple instances of gnome-screenshot were annoying as I had to click cancel numerous times.

This problem seems to be caused by the repeat keys feature in Keyboard preferences. When I switch off "repeat keys", I get one screenshot, as expected. Only with "repeat keys" on, I get multiple screenshots.
I would say this type of special keys / key combinations should not be repeated by the repeat keys feature.

The print screen button should not be repeated when the "repeat keys" functionality is turned on.

yes. i also think that doesn't make too much sense to have it for the screenshot key.

Instead of disabling "repeat keys" for all keys, you can disable repeat for only the print key with xset -r 111.
111 is the keycode for the print key on pc105 keyboards; for some keyboards another value may be needed.
Putting this command in /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default will set it automatically at login.

Hi. I'm using KDE, not Gnome. Is there an equivalent location in KDE to put this command, so it will be set automatically at login?
Thanks!

Not really an xkeyboard-config issue afaik.

I have had this problem on a dell laptop to the point I had to reload the system from the installation disk. The bug is sometimes extremely persistent, surviving pulling the power cord, and ejecting the battery to force a shutdown. Last time I tried the "xset -r 111" idea and it eventually worked after I brute forced a terminal session, entered the command and closed all the instances of the print screen dialog. I am interested in knowing what causes the problem and everything else on the kde desktop to be so persistent - when I want this behavior there seems to be no way to get it to happen...

Now that I have "recovered" and upgraded to the latest of everything ... the system is totally hosed. Gets a garbage message about being unable to launch a graphical configuration tool because displayconfig-gtk is not installed, and some giberish about manually configuring Xorg. Well. I have manually configured X before. Lets put it in plain anglais ... is easier to start over or find a better distro. Ubuntu will not seem to run consistantly for a single month without being re-installed or otherwise fiddled with. I would like it just to work.

I have this:

chris@ubuntu:~$ ls -l /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12 Apr 29 19:04 /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default
chris@ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Default
xset -r 111
chris@ubuntu:~$

I've rebooted. But I still see the PC hanging up sometimes when I try to make a screenshot. This is in 9.04. Is there something else I can try to fix this annoying bug?

I have the same bug on a laptop

HP Pavilion ze4200 ubuntu 9.04

As a workaround, I moved the gnome-screenshot to gnome-screenshot-real and creted a shell script in place of gnome-screenshot :

The script is

echo "Bug gnome-screenshot" | logger

Like this i can see if the bug is happening again

Then in the log I see that my script is called 700 times, but I cannot find what is the key that repeat indefinitly

I tried xev, but I cannot find the key

I'll keep you in touch here, this is very annoying bug

on hp compaq nx8220 with Ubuntu 9.04 I can reproduce this infinite screenshot loop every time with the following condtions:

Usually I will also have many programmes open at once; terminal, the Gimp, Open Office, Firefox with 12 or more tabs, Claws-mail and Gedit. Then with a big Grep running: say on my entire home directory - so that my processor is chugging away at full capacity - I might take a screenshot of something and .... kappow!

Gnome screenshot consistently starts an infinite loop when these conditions are present.

this must have gone since Alt+PrintScreen doesn't trigger the screenshot apps any more. see bug 642792 for details.