[BRLTTY] the letter "o" not registering when typed from other keyboards on powerpc mac mini running debian jessie

[Dave Mielke]

[quoted lines by Cheryl Homiak on 2015/05/31 at 18:08 -0500]
 
>Here is my brltty.log which I hope will show this problem and its solution. As 
>long as i type the letter "o" on my braille edge with brltty on, the letter is 
>registered. If I do it with any other keyboard while brltty is running, the 
>letter is not registered. This happens whether the key is o or capital o and 
>so far I have found no others that do this.

This one, too, was so far back in my inbox that I'd stopped noticing it. I 
guess it's a good thing that my actual memory kicks in every now and then. :-)

This problem is indeed very odd. Here is your log for when you typed a, o, and 
b. You'll notice (if the mysterious numbers don't get in the way) that the 
treatment of all three characters is identical. I've divided the log into three 
groups of seven lines each - one group per typed letter - to make this 
comparison easier to do.
The letter a: The number 30 is its keyboard scan code.

   keyboard key: press 30: received
   kbd key press: A (Ctx:2 Grp:1 Num:0) -> NOOP (Cmd:000000)
   keyboard key: press 30: forwarding
   command: 000000 (NOOP: do nothing)
   keyboard key: release 30: received
   kbd key release: A (Ctx:2 Grp:1 Num:0)
   keyboard key: release 30: forwarding

The letter o: The number 24 is its keyboard scan code.

   keyboard key: press 24: received
   kbd key press: O (Ctx:2 Grp:1 Num:14) -> NOOP (Cmd:000000)
   keyboard key: press 24: forwarding
   command: 000000 (NOOP: do nothing)
   keyboard key: release 24: received
   kbd key release: O (Ctx:2 Grp:1 Num:14)
   keyboard key: release 24: forwarding

   The letter b: The number 48 is its keyboard scan code.

   keyboard key: press 48: received
   kbd key press: B (Ctx:2 Grp:1 Num:1) -> NOOP (Cmd:000000)
   keyboard key: press 48: forwarding
   command: 000000 (NOOP: do nothing)
   keyboard key: release 48: received
   kbd key release: B (Ctx:2 Grp:1 Num:1)
   keyboard key: release 48: forwarding

As you can see: In all three cases, both the press and the release of the 
letter - whether or not it's for the letter o - are forwarded to the kernel 
(that's what "forwarding" means in the log).

There's another interesting line near the beginning of the log, i.e. during 
brltty start-up:

   Keyboard Table: braille

This means that, for some reason, brltty has been told to use the "braille" 
keyboard table. This shouldn't be causing any problem, but why not follow any 
possible angle. Could you please check your brltty options (for -k), 
brltty.conf content (for keyboard-table), etc to see where this specification 
is coming from? If you can't find it, then maybe try just overriding it by 
specifying another keyboard table via a commanda line option (perhaps 
-kkeypad). Be sure to capture a log so that the use of a different keyboard 
table can be verified.

I've actually just tried running brltty with -kbraille, here, and didn't have 
the problem. Let's see, though, what happens in your case.

-- 
Dave Mielke           | 2213 Fox Crescent | The Bible is the very Word of God.
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario   | http://Mielke.cc/bible/
EMail: Dave at Mielke.cc | Canada  K2A 1H7   | http://FamilyRadio.org/