Keyboard stopped working in game, but not Steam menu. Can't save&quit. HELP (Steam Linux)

[Neutrino.Frappuccino]

I've gotten up to the 9th sector with an epic ship. Was going well until I got a steam message from a friend. I couldn't type a reply when I did SHIFT+TAB to see the message.

Later I SHIFT+TAB back into the game but the keyboard doesn't work. It's not my keyboard's problem - I've tried another USB keyboard and a virtual on with same results.

Is there a way to get into the menu WITHOUT a keyboard??? I'm leaving my computer on because I don't want to lose my progress. I want to save and quit.[/b]

(I am running Lubuntu 12.04.2 LTS if that makes a difference)

[Xdiesp]

I don't think so, have you tried running a second instance of the game?

[Neutrino.Frappuccino]

I just tried to make a second instance, but it says the app is already running. I left the game paused for overnight and probably will leave it paused for another 12 hours until I can find a solution lol :S

[Neutrino.Frappuccino]

I gave up and just lost all my progress by quitting with ALT-F4. I just hope this issue never happens again!! Sooo frustrating.

[Bravo]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/212680/discussions/0/882960771709306597/

[thrillho]

Man, this bug has happened to me too, and more than once! There's no way to enter the menu, pause, or use any hotkeys whatsoever. Is there any solution? Even some temporary save that could be recovered? And I am running Ubuntu 14.04, if it matters.

[thrillho]

Ok... so I got it working by alt-tabbing, back and forth a bunch? Weird.

[Aurora Yukihime]

Автор сообщения: thrillho

Ok... so I got it working by alt-tabbing, back and forth a bunch? Weird.

Holy one-and-a-half-year gravedig, Batman!

[Zachu]

Same problem occuring to me after opening the steam overlay and replying to a chat message.

Alt+tabbing away from the game, pressing shift after exiting the overlay, trying to press all the other modifier keys (left shift, right shift, left ctrl, right ctrl, alt, alt gr, both windows buttons) didn't help. I tried to do it both in steam overlay and in the game. Also tried to exit steam overlay both with shift+tab and clicking at the "Click here to return to the game" -button.

I'm also on Ubuntu 14.04, and yes, also happened when having great ship :(

[anarcher]

>ubuntu

This is your problem. Install mint.

[Skinny Pete]

Автор сообщения: anarcher

>ubuntu

This is your problem. Install mint.

Mint is essentially a Debian-influenced variant of Ubuntu.

[anarcher]

Except it works, unlike ubuntu.

[farfabet]

Just got the issue today on Ubuntu 14.04, lost keyboard after steam overlay, couldn't get it back neither with shift key nor alt tabbing :(
this run was just starting to good...

[anarcher]

disable overlay. also, damn you for necroing this thread.

[Neutrino.Frappuccino]

Original poster here. For what it's worth I approve necroposting on this thread 2+ years after it was written - I still wake up from my dreams, screaming, from this event :(

For what it's worth I currently use Linux Mint 17 Qiana (build on 12.04 LTS until 2017). I haven't experienced the problem since, but I only played FTL 10 hours or so after the first issue occured so that doens't count for much. But yes, Linux Mint's defaults are much nicer than Ubuntu's defaults, but it's unlikely to have any impact on this issue, because the keyboard events are passed from X Windowing System to the application, as far as I understand.

Though I do have some very vague memory of the keyboard locking up on Linux in non-Steam applications once or twice in the past. I can't really remember the details (eg.whether it turned out to be a background window like Keychain Unlock being the active window, or an actual system issue that needed a restart)..