The "ws_read_indev error length %d" error

[Andrew Worsley]

Recently some one added the following to his .login and caused a week and
a half of mystery and frustration (you need X11R[34]:

alias   xinit xinit; kbd_mode -a

Okay it resets the keyboard on the console. This means every key typed
causes an error message to appear in the console of the form
"ws_read_indev error length %d". Absolutely nothing will cause a key
stroke to be communicated to any of the windows. The mouse still works.
The only way out I know so far is to exit suntools. A suntools/X11 hacker
may know a way to return the keyboard back to a sensible state (I would
appreciate hearing about it if you do know). 

Our user in adding the above line to his .login had neglected to escape
the `;' consequently it would reset the keyboard of any Sun that he logged
into to! It took us ages to find out what was causing it. Unfortunately
Sun technicians here had never heard of this error message and so couldn't
shed any light on what the cause might be. It had to be tracked down by
trail and error. If you escape the ';' it is actually quite a sensible
alias as xinit can apparently leave you keyboard in a funny state
sometimes. So it is sensible to reset the keyboard after the program
exits.

I post this information so that any one else who finds the problem won't
have to spend so long tracking it down (I hope) and prehaps to persuade
Sun to somehow prevent any old user from stomping on the keyboard (or
screen) with unprivledged programs.

	Andrew Worsley
Division of Information Technology (Melbourne), Phone +61 3 347 8644
C.S.I.R.O.                                      Fax  +61 3 347 8987
55 Barry St.                                    Telex AA 152914
Carlton, Vic, 3053, Australia                   E-mail: worsley at ditmela.oz.au