VMware Communities: keyboard stops working... system beeps

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16 Replies Last post: May 20, 2008 9:20 AM by TrevorHart1

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keyboard stops working... system beeps

Apr 6, 2007 2:30 PM

Novice

pingaiter 17 posts since
Nov 25, 2006

I've seen a few posts circulating with no resolution regarding this so I thought I'd add my observations. My situation is similar to what I've read with others. Mysteriously Fusion guest OSes will lose keyboard functionality. This is consistent with all OSes I currently have configured (Solaris 10-64, XP SP2, Ubuntu 6.10 Server). With Solaris it seemed to happen right before I could type the domain name during the system install procedure. There doesn't seem to be a similar pattern with XP SP2 and Ubuntu. Funny thing is in XP, pressing the Command key will trigger the opening of the Start menu, however no other keys will work. Pressing any other key in any OS results in an OS X system beep with no output to the Fusion VM. All other OS X applications respond normally to the keyboard, including VMs running in Parallels!

On a whim, I've closed all my Parallels VMs and proceeded to reinstall Solaris. I did get past all initial screens and the install appears to be proceeding normally. Perhaps there is a conflict with Parallels and Fusion with grabbing keyboard input. Any thoughts?

Oh, I'm using Fusion beta 3, and Parallels build 3188 in case anyone's curious.

---------------------------------------------------------
Macbook Pro 2.33 C2D | 3GB Ram | 160 GB HD | OS X 10.4.9

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Apr 6, 2007 3:01 PM

Master

bgertzfield 1,120 posts since
Sep 7, 2005 VMware

VMware

This means some application (usually Quicken or CheckPoint Secure Client VPN-1) has disabled keyboard input systemwide.

You'll notice that while this happens, if you go to System Preferences > International > Input menu and enable the "Keyboard Viewer", that Keyboard Viewer no longer works.

Are you running either Quicken or CheckPoint Secure Client VPN-1?

If you're running Mac OS X 10.4.9 when this happens, can you run the following from a Terminal (from the /Applications/Utilities folder)?

ioreg -l -w 0 | grep SecureInput

You should see something like:

"IOConsoleUsers" = ({"kCGSSessionGroupIDKey"=20,"kCGSSessionOnConsoleKey"=Yes,"kCGSSessionIDKey"=256,"kCGSSessionUserNameKey"="admin","kCGSessionLoginDoneKey"=Yes,"kCGSessionLongUserNameKey"="admin","kCGSSessionSystemSafeBoot"=No,"kCGSSessionLoginwindowSafeLogin"=No,"kCGSSessionConsoleSetKey"=0,"kCGSSessionUserIDKey"=501,"kCGSSessionSecureInputPID"=311}) "IOConsoleUsersSeed" = <14000000>

Let me know what you see for the "kCGSSessionSecureInputPID" value. Can you note down the number, then run:

ps auxwww | grep 311

(where 311 is that number)

so we can see what application has enabled secure input?

Thanks!

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Apr 9, 2007 9:49 AM

in response to: bgertzfield

Lurker

wesochuck 1 posts since
Apr 9, 2007

This was just what I needed. The checkpoint SecureClient program was preventing my keyboard from working properly. I stopped the VPN client (on my Mac side) and then I was able to use the keyboard again. Thanks so much for your help!

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Apr 9, 2007 9:55 AM

in response to: wesochuck

Master

bgertzfield 1,120 posts since
Sep 7, 2005 VMware

VMware

No problem. I've written to Checkpoint, and they said they would release a fixed version of the client.

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Apr 27, 2007 10:57 AM

Novice

pingaiter 17 posts since
Nov 25, 2006

It seems my issue is related to VPN, however not from OS X. I have a Parallels VM with Win XP SP2 installed. When I login to our corp LAN using the Contivity VPN Client from Nortel within the Parallels VM, I have the keyboard lockout issue ONLY in VMWare VMs. I can have multiple instances of Parallels VMs (Linux, Windows, etc) without issue. I also do not have a problem with using the keyboard in OS X. The lockout (system beeps) only occur in VMWare VMs. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Jun 18, 2007 6:44 PM

in response to: bgertzfield

Novice

taxman 22 posts since
Jun 13, 2007

Are there plans to have the keyboard operate without having to disable Quicken Scheduler or the other programs?

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Aug 1, 2007 3:14 PM

Lurker

ddigioia 1 posts since
Aug 31, 2005

Other than this issue, we love the VMware Fusion product.

However, this is a show-stopper for several people at my company.

System administrators, developers, consultants, etc. need access to customers' networks or their own through VPN's such as Check Point VPN-1 with Secureclient/Securemote.

I'm not sure if this is Check Point's issue to resolve. However, they have IMHO been slow to update their Mac OS X VPN client, and Parallels Desktop does not have this compatibility issue with Check Point's software.

So could VMware at least acknowledge the seriousness of this bug/compatibility issue, and perhaps give us an ETA for fixing it?

Thanks,
David

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Oct 27, 2007 7:25 PM

Lurker

weezerkiley 1 posts since
Oct 27, 2007

I have the same problem, but only if I have Parallels and VMWARE open at the same time. I have two servers running and it would beep when I tried to input anything except the command button.

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Oct 31, 2007 8:16 AM

in response to: weezerkiley

Lurker

AustinJane 1 posts since
Oct 31, 2007

After tearing my hair our, letting it grow back, and then tearing it out again, rebooting, rebooting, and then rebooting, I decided I needed to come up with a better solution.

I dug around a little, and figured out that Opera (running on the Mac) is causing my keyboard to stop working in VMWare Fusion. Simply closing Opera (not just minimizing it) solved my problem.

I hope that helps anyone else out there that is also losing their hair.

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Oct 31, 2007 9:55 AM

Master

bgertzfield 1,120 posts since
Sep 7, 2005 VMware

VMware

Just to let folks know, we are painfully aware of this issue, and we're sorry for the inconvenience. The problem is that any program, like Checkpoint, Quicken, etc. can disable raw keyboard input system-wide—not just to VMware Fusion, but also to any game or accessibility application that needs to read the keyboard directly.

We've spent several months trying to get Apple to provide us a workaround; they wrote a Technical Note that we've been sending to the application vendors telling them how to use the keyboard disabling API correctly:

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2007/tn2150.html

We proposed a new API to be included in Mac OS X 10.5, but that didn't happen.

It's going to take some serious rearchitecting of our keyboard support to no work around this issue, and unfortunately that didn't happen in time for VMware Fusion 1.1.

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Dec 3, 2007 7:03 AM

in response to: bgertzfield

Lurker

chillyjim 6 posts since
May 25, 2004

Sorry I should have posted this a while ago. There is a fix to the Check Point SecureClient problem. If you contact support they can supply you the updated client. The version I got is SecureClient_B612008001_1.pkg.zip.

Also when in "Unity" mode the keyboard does work.

-jlh

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Jan 24, 2008 5:47 AM

in response to: chillyjim

Lurker

cej 2 posts since
Apr 18, 2005

Hi chillyjim. Is this fix also available for the pre-release SecureClient for Leopard, or is it just for 10.4? I just got the pre-relase and am running Leopard. As you suggested, switching to Unity resolves the issue, but I prefer to work in full screen mode.

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Jan 25, 2008 6:25 AM

in response to: cej

Lurker

chillyjim 6 posts since
May 25, 2004

The fix isn't in the EA for Leopard but I'm told it will be in the GA (Mid-March is the latest I've heard for GA).

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Jan 25, 2008 6:36 AM

in response to: chillyjim

Lurker

cej 2 posts since
Apr 18, 2005

Thanks for the info. I think I can get by until then. Take care.

p.s. I also noted the EA version burns quite a bit of CPU.

Best regards,

Charles E. Johnson
Information Systems Manager, Schenker Inc.
telephone: 516.403.5405

Reply Re: keyboard stops working... system beeps Feb 18, 2008 1:16 AM

in response to: bgertzfield

Lurker

benpoole 2 posts since
Dec 29, 2006

Great tip, thank you. I was able to identify the errant process on my machine causing this too. For the record, the audio scrobbling client, last.fm, was responsible!

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