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How do I re-enable a locked keyboard and mouse?

im flag

How do I unlock my keyboard and trackpad once they become locked?

To start, I'll say that this happens on my Thinkpad P50. I often set laptop in places that my cats can get into. We're working on it, but they like to walk across the keyboard and even take naps on it. I find that about 3/4 of the time, they manage to lock the trackpad and keyboard. I'm basically stuck apart from restarting the laptop. I've found that I can still use the little red trackpoint mouse and alternate buttons.

I've tried to emulate my cats and run my hand across the keyboard a few times. Sometimes I get lucky and the keyboard and mouse unlock. I can use my laptop normally again. Most of the time I'm stuck using the trackpoint to close out of things and restart. My searches haven't provided any solutions that have worked.

in flag
Guessing is suboptimal, but does [Fn]+[K] (scroll lock) or [Fn]+[B] (break) the issue? Generally this sort of thing is seen when the keyboard is set in a different mode
Utkarsh Chandra Srivastava avatar
hu flag
can you post image of your keyboard
Sadaharu Wakisaka avatar
pl flag
Welcome to AskUbuntu. Is this an Ubuntu related question? If so, please describe your Ubuntu version. The Lenovo site has an entry of this FAQ, Fn+F11 is a shortcut to lock or unlock ThinkPad Keyboard.
Matthew Tingum avatar
im flag
@SadaharuWakisaka Thanks for bringing this up! I'm not sure if this is an Ubuntu issue or a ThinkPad issue. Fn+F11 did not do the trick. I don't boot any other OS on this laptop so I can't say for certain.
Matthew Tingum avatar
im flag
@matigo Unfortunately [Fn]+[K] (scroll lock) or [Fn]+[B] (break) did not unlock my keyboard. Perhaps there is a way to key-log myself to see what is going on?
in flag
If you are looking for a key logger, then [logkeys](https://github.com/kernc/logkeys) is a decent tool. Note that this will require that you use X11, not Wayland. I'm not sure which version of Ubuntu you're using but, if it's 20.04 or earlier, than this will give you what you need.
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