0

My laptop keyboard stopped working after an update to Ubuntu 20.04. The solutions mentioned in other threads, such as (re)installing xserver-xorg-input-all, changing stuff in the GRUB menu, changing the keyboard layout/language or enabling/disabling stuff in the "Universal Access" menu (such as AccessX) didn't worked at all. My external keyboard works fine, but I need to get the default keyboard working again.

neofetch screenshot

"about" settings screenshot

Simon Sudler
  • 4,111
Apersonwithkeyboardproblems
  • 1

4 Answers4

0

A similar issue happened to me. I installed Kubuntu 20.04 on my wife's notebook HP Pavilion x360. The installation was successful but after the update, the keyboard and the touchpad didn't work. Then I've tried with a lot of others distributions (KDE Neon, Manjaro KDE, Mint MATE, Zorin Core...) and the same occurred.

I solved the problem at GRUB choosing the kernel 5.3.0-40 or 5.3.0-42 instead of 5.3.0-45 or 5.3.0-47 but I have to choose it every boot.

Jose Ramon Badoch
  • 1
0

The problem is Ubuntu thinks your PC is a tablet and diables the keyboard. The fix below works if the following command gives you any number that is not 31 or 32.

cat /sys/class/dmi/id/chassis_type

How to fix this: (from https://askubuntu.com/a/1282269/558457)

There is a bug in recent kernels that disables some laptop keyboards. Mainly Acer and HP so far. Can usually go to recovery and boot from kernel 5.4.0-42 or use an external keyboard.

Blacklisting the intel_vbtn kernel module is a workaround for this, as seen in Why my laptop's keyboard screwed up since kernel 5.4.0-47 till 5.8.0-20

To implement this, you can either create a new file in /etc/modprobe.d with the suffix .conf or use the main blacklist.conf file. The former may be preferable, since you can then just delete the file when it is no longer required (i.e. when the bug is fixed):

sudoedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-intel_vbtn.conf

Add a line to the file, optionally with a comment explaining why you are doing this

# bug in module breaks keyboard, so don't load it
blacklist intel_vbtn

Save the file, exit and reboot.

p0wl
  • 288
0

Worked well for me:

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-evdev
sudo apt remove xserver-xorg-input-libinput
reboot

This changes libinput to evdev and synaptics.

Hope this will help someone!

See what changed

lucasfcnunes
  • 1
0

I have 2 identical Ubuntu 21.x systems. I tried everything above on one of them, undoing each strategy before trying the next. I came across the suggestion to do a COLD reboot on another site. This worked on both systems. So before you go changing config files etc., see if this will work for you - it's certainly the easiest solution.

Matt Stead
  • 1