Keyboard characters repeating too fast

[Daniel15]

Hi everyone,

I'm using Ubuntu 8.04, and have a Windows XP virtual machine that's working perfectly. However, I recently tried to make a new Ubuntu 8.04 virtual machine to test software in, and it doesn't appear to be working too well. Keystrokes seem to repeat really quickly (so eg. if I try to type "daniel", it might come out like "ddddaaaaannniiiieeeeelllllll"), and the clock was running really fast during the install (although it doesn't seem as bad after I've installed Ubuntu and VMware tools). If I press the keys really quickly and lightly, it works fine, but this is obviously quite annoying for normal use 😛

Host system: Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop, 1.73GHz Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive, running Ubuntu 8.04

VM: 1 processor, 512 MB RAM, 8 GB hard disk space, Ubuntu 8.04

Any ideas?

[Beerdy]

You could try adding keyboard.typematicMinDelay = "2000000" to the bottom of your vmx file.

[markmandel]

I'm currently working through the same issue. I've tried everything I can think of from here and no go.

This just makes the VM unusable, and I was planning on using Ubuntu OS's for building training VMs, and now I'm very much stuck, as it doesn't look like it's an option.

If anyone has any solutions on this, I would love to hear them.

[Shinji-san]

Hi,

I am also experiencing the same problem. It happen on my ubuntu, debian, xp and w2k3 too. This problem is quite annoying especially when typing the password. I hope there is a solution fast.

[Ptochos]

Same problem here. I think I know the cause, and have found a solution.

Environment:

ESXi 4.0.0 Build 171294, vSphere Client 4.0.0 Build 162856, Running on Dell PowerEdge 1950 with Dual Quad 3GHz Xeon CPUs

Situation:

We needed to experiment with SQL running on one of our Windows 2000 Servers, so I made a copy of it's virtual disk (vmdk) and setup a new VM to run with it.

When the new machine booted up, it was difficult to logon because the keyboard was repeating to quickly. The mouse functioned normally. I opened a DOS window to easily see what the keyboard was doing. Normal typing gave me between 2 and 5 characters per keystroke.

Since the mouse was working, I figured the graphical interface was ok, so I opened the onscreen keyboard. It still repeated, but not as quickly; probably because clicking was faster than keypresses.

Possible cause:

I setup the new VM with 2 vCPUs, while the original had only 1. Perhaps this made the keyboard repeat rate double? I didn't try shutting down, removing a vCPU, rebooting; because my first idea for a solution was quick, easy, and it worked!

Solution:

In the Control Panel - Keyboard Properties - Adjust the Repeat delay toward "Long" & Repeat rate toward "Slow" until the repeat seems comfortable. This can be done with the mouse alone

Observation:

There is probably a "right" way to duplicate VMs that would avoid this; but I've only been using VMware about 9 months, and I'm still poking around and learning.

• So far I think VMware is the coolest thing in the realm of PCs since the introduction of the 10MB MFM hard drive! (Yep, I mean the 10 MegaByte hard drive)