Firefox - CTRL or SHIFT or ALT not working in Guest VM

[gb00s]

Proxmox 6.4 / Firefox 88.0.1

My journey with Firefox issues continues. Now I'm unable to use CTRL- or SHIFT- or ALT -keys in the console of a guest in Firefox. In Chromium it works just fine. Each of these do not work and it's not a matter of the issues with CTRL-ALT-SHIFT issues in the past.

Does anyone experience the same issue?

 

[Moayad]

Does the problem occur with only one VM or all VMs?

Are you use SPICE or noVNC?

Please post a full output of the pveversion -v also the VM config qm config <VMID>

 

[gb00s]

@Moayad

Thank you for the quick reply. Unfortunately, the issue appears in all virtual machines after upgrade to 6.4-4. I also tested and upgraded to 6.4-5 and have the same problem. I'm using noVNC exclusively. Maybe the issue startet together with Firefox 88.

Here I'm posting the output of pvmversion -v of one of the hosts. They are all the same.

root@pve1:~# pveversion -v
proxmox-ve: 6.4-1 (running kernel: 5.4.106-1-pve)
pve-manager: 6.4-5 (running version: 6.4-5/6c7bf5de)
pve-kernel-5.4: 6.4-1
pve-kernel-helper: 6.4-1
pve-kernel-5.4.106-1-pve: 5.4.106-1
pve-kernel-5.4.103-1-pve: 5.4.103-1
pve-kernel-5.4.73-1-pve: 5.4.73-1
ceph-fuse: 12.2.11+dfsg1-2.1+b1
corosync: 3.1.2-pve1
criu: 3.11-3
glusterfs-client: 5.5-3
ifupdown: residual config
ifupdown2: 3.0.0-1+pve3
ksm-control-daemon: 1.3-1
libjs-extjs: 6.0.1-10
libknet1: 1.20-pve1
libproxmox-acme-perl: 1.0.8
libproxmox-backup-qemu0: 1.0.3-1
libpve-access-control: 6.4-1
libpve-apiclient-perl: 3.1-3
libpve-common-perl: 6.4-2
libpve-guest-common-perl: 3.1-5
libpve-http-server-perl: 3.2-1
libpve-storage-perl: 6.4-1
libqb0: 1.0.5-1
libspice-server1: 0.14.2-4~pve6+1
lvm2: 2.03.02-pve4
lxc-pve: 4.0.6-2
lxcfs: 4.0.6-pve1
novnc-pve: 1.1.0-1
proxmox-backup-client: 1.1.5-1
proxmox-mini-journalreader: 1.1-1
proxmox-widget-toolkit: 2.5-3
pve-cluster: 6.4-1
pve-container: 3.3-5
pve-docs: 6.4-1
pve-edk2-firmware: 2.20200531-1
pve-firewall: 4.1-3
pve-firmware: 3.2-2
pve-ha-manager: 3.1-1
pve-i18n: 2.3-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 5.2.0-6
pve-xtermjs: 4.7.0-3
qemu-server: 6.4-2
smartmontools: 7.2-pve2
spiceterm: 3.1-1
vncterm: 1.6-2
zfsutils-linux: 2.0.4-pve1
root@pve1:~#

Additionally I provide two config outputs of 2 vm's.

oot@prox2:~# qm config 1001
agent: 1
balloon: 4096
boot: order=scsi0;net0
cores: 4
cpu: host,flags=+aes
memory: 16382
name: port0
net0: virtio=6E:BB:87:24:53:14,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 1
onboot: 1
ostype: l26
protection: 1
scsi0: VM:vm-1001-disk-0,cache=writeback,discard=on,iothread=1,size=50G,ssd=1
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
smbios1: uuid=dd38b8e8-f12d-4acb-ac6b-83d6f44b30ac
sockets: 2
startup: order=1,up=10
vmgenid: 95aaa35f-b315-417a-9789-f4842b5b9ecd
root@prox2:~#

and

root@pve1:~# qm config 800
agent: 1
bios: seabios
boot: order=scsi0
cores: 8
cpu: host
memory: 32768
name: nh-fun2build0
net0: e1000=16:05:16:2E:62:14,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 1
ostype: l26
scsi0: VM:vm-800-disk-0,cache=writeback,iothread=1,size=100G,ssd=1
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
smbios1: uuid=055e14b3-3214-412a-8c9a-91a165f63f68
sockets: 2
vga: vmware,memory=512
vmgenid: 383f9366-dd61-4a53-9b9a-9cfbcff51e7c
root@pve1:~#

 

[Moayad]

Thank you for the VM configs and the version.

I just tested it on my workstation the keys on Firefox 88.0.1 (OS Ubuntu) the SHIFT, ALT and CTRL are works.

Have you tried to open noVNC on a different browser?

 

[gb00s]

@Moayad

Yes, as mentioned in the opening thread, Chromium works. Tested other browsers as well. But they are all Chromium-based. It's just Firefox. Just wondering what the issue is and where to look for settings to be changed.

Any advice?

 

[ramrot]

@Moayad

Yes, as mentioned in the opening thread, Chromium works. Tested other browsers as well. But they are all Chromium-based. It's just Firefox. Just wondering what the issue is and where to look for settings to be changed.

Any advice?

maybe a plugin/extension on firefox messing with the keys?

 

[gb00s]

Unfortunately, even with all addon's disabled I have the same issue. Also, there is no difference between FF on Windows and/or Linux. I almost ruled out everything that could point to a problem on the host itself. But other browsers don't show the issue and even different plaforms make no difference with FF.

 

[PrimozR]

Old thread, but just to add my findings in 2024:

I had the same issue with Shift, Alt, Ctrl not being recognized in Librewolf (based on FF), version 129 and earlier too.
While it works fine on FF 130 and Chromium-based browsers.
I found a hint on Reddit, pointing to fingerprinting protection.

I disabled "Enable ResistFingerprinting" in Settings > Librewolf > Fingerprinting. After that, modifier keys work fine via noVNC.

I assume the issue in FF was also caused by fingerprinting protection and got fixed since then.

 

[rottenronnie]

Old thread, but just to add my findings in 2024:

I had the same issue with Shift, Alt, Ctrl not being recognized in Librewolf (based on FF), version 129 and earlier too.
While it works fine on FF 130 and Chromium-based browsers.
I found a hint on Reddit, pointing to fingerprinting protection.

I disabled "Enable ResistFingerprinting" in Settings > Librewolf > Fingerprinting. After that, modifier keys work fine via noVNC.

I assume the issue in FF was also caused by fingerprinting protection and got fixed since then.

You saved me a ton of grief. Thank you for pointing out that FireFox was not working correctly with PVE VMs. Chromium worked perfectly.

Cheers!

 

[Apple ][]

You saved me a ton of grief. Thank you for pointing out that FireFox was not working correctly with PVE VMs. Chromium worked perfectly.

Cheers!

Keeping this thread alive because, yes, me too! I just hit this exact problem. Thanks for the conversation. BTW - here's the mozilla help for problem web sites
Disable Firefox Advanced Tracking Protection

 

[rottenronnie]

Keeping this thread alive because, yes, me too! I just hit this exact problem. Thanks for the conversation. BTW - here's the mozilla help for problem web sites
Disable Firefox Advanced Tracking Protection

Were you able to use FireFox when you disabled the tracking protection?

 

[Apple ][]

Were you able to use FireFox when you disabled the tracking protection?

Yep. My odd problem was with the "Shift" keys (left and right) not being recognized in the QEMU (firefox browser) window.

On a side note, I'm new to proxmox and I don't know much about QEMU and or Spice(?) tools, so I don't even know if I could have told proxmox how to use a different browser and keep firefox as my desktop default.

 

[Apple ][]

Well, that didn't seem to work for long. Since I have absolutely no configuration management or version control in my home lab pile-o-electrons, I don't know a root cause. ('cause I'm a tinkerer) Shift isn't working again, so I'll use chromium and break something else.