Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS: laptop keyboard not working after updates

Question

First things first, I should say that I'm a real newbie when it comes to Ubuntu -- I've been using it for no longer than three months and have no previous experience with any other OS except for Windows. That said, I'm glad I found this community.

I work on an Acer Extensa 2509 (a bit overpowered) and I had no problems going from 20.04 to 20.04.1 LTS. But after some minor updates via the Software Updater (I only read 'Ubuntu base', not paying much attention to the details), and after the reboot, the keyboard+touchpad stopped working.

Using a plug-in USB keyboard & mouse I re-installed the OS, and noticed that the built-in keyboard works properly until I have to reboot my PC. After that I constantly return to the starting point.

Any suggestions will be much appreciated. Cheers!

EDIT: I replaced the 20.04 release with the 18.04.5 -- keyboard & touchpad work perfectly now. I will surely come back soon to 20.04 and try to solve the problem anyway.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

This isn't really an answer, but I just now got the keyboard working. I came here and signed up because I have the same exact problem on an Acer Aspire, I just installed Ubuntu 20.04.1 a couple hours ago.

What I Did:

I upgraded to kernel 5.6, but it still didn't work, at first. I could press caps lock on the laptop keyboard, and the caps-lock light on my usb keyboard would light up, ditto with numlock. I thought that was weird. I then spammed f<#> keys and then recalled reading in one of the release notes (somewhere), that they fixed the Super key or something. So I pressed Super and some other key, and then my window resized (I suppose I hit some hotkey combo at random), and suddenly the laptop keyboard started working.

I've not actual clue, but I suppose it was pressing the Super Key and something else, perhaps they borked something else when fixing the super key, not uncommon.

Answer 3

Same problem here with my HP x360 310 G1.

With the new kernel 5.4.0-47, no more keyboard (nor touchpad if I do not install the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics). There is the same issue with the 5.4.0-45.

Keyboard works in console mode, but after a 'startx' (which I configure to start only an Xserver and an Xterm ), no more keyboard.

If I remove the linux-modules-extra packages of those kernels, the keyboard works (but I need the broadcom b43 module :-( )

Everything is OK with the kernel 5.4.0-42. Wait for the 5.4.0-48 ? ;-)