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I am using Gnome3/Gnome Shell/Ubuntu 11.10. Today, when I began using my machine, it would not co-operate with me. Trying to type simple documents, my SHIFT-p was captured -- and spawned an xterm window!

I have no idea how I may have caused this anomaly. But I searched the various locations trying to find the culprit...

I checked the "Shortcuts" tab of the "System Settings|Hardware|Keyboard" applet... no assignment to SHIFT-p in any of these lists...

I checked the Commands panel in "CompizConfig Settings Manager" (from Gnome Menu|Other)... no assignment there either.

After reading some other related keymapping issues asked in askubuntu, I brought up the xev application to see what it would report... while programmatically pressing each key on the keyboard, examining the report from xev, I learned that SHIFT-w-w is also mapped to bring up an xterm!

while exploring, it appears (using ps -ef), that both commands are mapped to "sh -c xterm"...

How can I fix this? I don't know where to turn next.

ps -ef

reports three processes being initiated each time I press SHIFT-p (or SHIFT-w-w):

* sh -c xterm
* xterm
* bash

Can anyone help me to troubleshoot this problem?

UPDATE

The problem boiled down to an issue with my .xbindkeysrc.scm file. I had explored a tutorial on the topic some weeks back and had downloaded a tutorial (.xbindkeysrc.scm) file. After playing with the tutorial for a little while, I disabled the file.

When doing some housekeeping on my system this morning, I inadvertently re-enabled the file. This caused the mysterious behavior.

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  • So, I went to a console and tried to reproduce the problem. But failed. This led me to realize that it was specific to the X environment. After digging around, I realized it was due to settings in my .xbindkeysrc.scm file!
    – TheGeeko61
    Dec 21, 2011 at 2:05
  • So this can be deleted... (But I'm not sure how to do that.)
    – TheGeeko61
    Dec 21, 2011 at 2:07

1 Answer 1

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The problem boiled down to an issue with my .xbindkeysrc.scm file. I had explored a tutorial on the topic some weeks back and had downloaded a tutorial (.xbindkeysrc.scm) file. After playing with the tutorial for a little while, I disabled the file.

When doing some housekeeping on my system this morning, I inadvertently re-enabled the file. This caused the mysterious behavior.

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