Can't use keyboard when installing OS

M

michaelf

Member
Oct 13, 2023
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michaelfirsov.wordpress.com
Hello!

Very often I can't type most of keyboard symbols when creating a new VM:
Keyboard1.png

For example (as seen on the screenshot above): this time the only symbols I could type were "n" and "backspace" , I then ran the Screen keyboard - almost always it works flawlessly - but today even this keyboard did not let me type anything instead of "n" and "1-2 -3-----0).


The solution: either reboot the VM (it's obviously a bad idea on this stage since the OS is being installed) or clickingon the Screen keyboard or pressing the keys of the physical keyboard for ~15-60 seconds randomly.

This behaviour does not depend on the OS type being installed.

???

Regards,
Michael
 
Hello

Can you share the config of the vm? You can find it in /etc/pve/qemu-server/<VMID>.conf.
 
Does this happen with Linux OS as well or just with Windows?
 
Okey. Let's see if there is anything reported in the journal that can shed light on what is happening. You can get a file containing the journal including that time with journalctl --since '2023-11-23' > $(hostname)-journal.txt
 
Here's the log (please see the attachment).

I don't know what should I be searching for in the log regarding the keyboard problem but I do see this strange thing(s) in the log regarding my second issue:
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/strange-behaviour-with-shared-smb-storage.136957/

Please excuse me for the off-topic but if it's the same log...I couldn't resist the temptation to upload the follwoing screenshot:

Here the Proxmox keeps complaining on the unreachable shared storage C3Dshared which was used to create VM107 on which I had the issue with the keyboard! From 23.11.2023 onward this VM works perfect - providing its virtual hdd (the image) is located on the shared storage (C3Dshared) which my Proxmox considers to be "unreachable"... (my second post was on the other shared storage -Share1 - but I think the problems might be ~ the same in both cases):

31.png
 

Attachments

michaelf said:
Here's the log (please see the attachment).

I don't know what should I be searching for in the log regarding the keyboard problem but I do see this strange thing(s) in the log regarding my second issue:
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/strange-behaviour-with-shared-smb-storage.136957/
Click to expand...

Hard to explain. You basically look at the time when the issue happened and hope you find some glue. In your case the boot of VM resulted in a warning it seems.

Code: 
Nov 23 15:01:34 pve pvedaemon[649598]: <root@pam> end task UPID:pve:00108C18:07B546E7:655F3F1C:qmstart:107:root@pam: WARNINGS: 1

Let's look in the task log and see if we can find out more.
pvenode task log UPID:pve:00108C18:07B546E7:655F3F1C:qmstart:107:root@pam: > $(hostname)-task.txt

michaelf said:
Here the Proxmox keeps complaining on the unreachable shared storage C3Dshared which was used to create VM107 on which I had the issue with the keyboard! From 23.11.2023 onward this VM works perfect - providing its virtual hdd (the image) is located on the shared storage (C3Dshared) which my Proxmox considers to be "unreachable"... (my second post was on the other shared storage -Share1 - but I think the problems might be ~ the same in both cases):
Click to expand...
We can look at your storage configuration. It's saved at /etc/pve/storage.cfg
 
pvenode task log UPID:pve:00108C18:07B546E7:655F3F1C:qmstart:107:root@pam: > $(hostname)-task.txt

WARN: no efidisk configured! Using temporary efivars disk.
TASK WARNINGS: 1

Storage:
cifs: Share1
path /mnt/pve/Share1
server betatest
share adshare
content rootdir,iso,images
domain klmn.ascon.local
prune-backups keep-all=1
username firsov

cifs: C3Dshared
path /mnt/pve/C3Dshared
server mfs
share Common
content vztmpl,snippets,rootdir,iso,images,backup
domain klmn.ascon.local
prune-backups keep-all=1
subdir /C3D/SHAREED
username firsov
 
michaelf said:
WARN: no efidisk configured! Using temporary efivars disk.
TASK WARNINGS: 1
Click to expand...
Do you have an EFI disc configured in the hardware tab of your VM? Is the EFI disk on the C3Dshared storage and inaccessible?
 
About the storage, could you share ls -d -l /mnt/pve/C3Dshared and cat /etc/fstab?
 
"Do you have an EFI disc configured in the hardware tab of your VM? " - no, at least I checked out the corresponding checkbox while creating the VM:
33.png

(but I did use them in my first VMs - NOT in VM7!)

ls -d -l /mnt/pve/C3Dshared
cat /etc/fstab
34.png
 
You can see in your first screenshot, there is "BIOS" = "OVMF (UEFI)" set. This means you are using UEFI boot, not legacy boot. However, you do not provide any storage the UEFI can be written to. You can fix this by adding an EFI disk to your Hardware.

I do not know if this causes your issue, but it might be worth setting one just to rule it out.

Also, I am a little confused about C3Dshared. You said in a post before that the keyboard issue does not occur when the disk is stored on C3shared, which is the case on your screenshot. Does that mean the issue currently does not occur?
 
"However, you do not provide any storage the UEFI can be written to. You can fix this by adding an EFI disk to your Hardware." - yes, that confuses me either: I did select OVMF but did also check out the EFI disk when creaing a VM:
35.png

- and this (any a couple of other VMs too) works perfect with such settings on any storage (except Share1) so I don't understand how I can choose UEFI WITHOUT adding the EFI disk... But from the other hand, if there's the checkbox - not the default selection - then it should be possible!... ???

Regarding the keyboard issue: it happens with any VM with ANY storage - almost always (may be there was just one VM or container that didn't suffer from it).
 
Hi,
michaelf said:
"However, you do not provide any storage the UEFI can be written to. You can fix this by adding an EFI disk to your Hardware." - yes, that confuses me either: I did select OVMF but did also check out the EFI disk when creaing a VM:
View attachment 59052

- and this (any a couple of other VMs too) works perfect with such settings on any storage (except Share1) so I don't understand how I can choose UEFI WITHOUT adding the EFI disk... But from the other hand, if there's the checkbox - not the default selection - then it should be possible!... ???

Regarding the keyboard issue: it happens with any VM with ANY storage - almost always (may be there was just one VM or container that didn't suffer from it).
Click to expand...
if you do not add an EFI disk, default EFI variables will be used during boot. But you won't be able to preserve any EFI configuration changes.

Regarding the keyboard issue: what browser (version) are you using? Did you already try a different one? Did you try reloading the web page/re-opening the console? How stable is your network connection to the Proxmox VE server? How does the load on the server look like?
 
1) Fiona, thank you for the clarification on EFI!

2) I'm using Firefox 119.0.1 and I haven't tried a different browser yet. Reloading/re-opening may help sometimes.
The network connection is pretty stable this test server sits right next to me :)

Since this the test server the load is rather low:
36.png

In any case the keyboard issues begin to manifest themselves upon deploying the very first VM so it may be either browser-related or hardware-related issue - if it does not happen on other installations.
 
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