"ctrl-c" won't work in terminal

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dnalordnalor Author

Level 1

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"ctrl-c" won't work in terminal

All,

I just finished installing maverick. and for some weird reason, "ctrl-c"won't work in terminal.

i cannot break, and my commands will keep running.

for example pinging google will keep going and the only way to stop that, is to close the whole terminal.

pressing "ctrl z"or "Ctrl c"wont work, it just shows z or c characters...

I checked the keyboard viewer and noticed two characters always set to orange which are:

' & `

now the weird thing, that if these were trully pressed, i wouldn't be able to type and you'll actually see lots of ticks and single quotation marks.

Any hint on how to fix this ?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Apr 10, 2014 12:08 PM

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Answer 1

Melophage

Level 5

7,213 points

Apr 10, 2014 8:35 PM in response to dnalordnalor

dnalordnalor,

which physical keyboard layout does your MacBook Pro have, and which OS X input source are you using in Terminal?

What output is generated by the following command in Terminal?

stty -a

In Keyboard Viewer, does it show your Control key turning grey when you press it down?

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Answer 2

dnalordnalor Author

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Apr 11, 2014 7:48 AM in response to Melophage

Melophage,

Thanks for answering.

i'm not sure i understood your questions proeprly, so i will try my best to answer,hoping that's the right response.

1. input sources: is set to "US. international - pc"

2. output of stty -a:

stty -a

speed 9600 baud; 24 rows; 80 columns;

lflags: icanon isig iexten echo echoe -echok echoke -echonl echoctl

-echoprt -altwerase -noflsh -tostop -flusho pendin -nokerninfo

-extproc

iflags: -istrip icrnl -inlcr -igncr ixon -ixoff ixany imaxbel iutf8

-ignbrk brkint -inpck -ignpar -parmrk

oflags: opost onlcr -oxtabs -onocr -onlret

cflags: cread cs8 -parenb -parodd hupcl -clocal -cstopb -crtscts -dsrflow

-dtrflow -mdmbuf

cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;

eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^?; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;

min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = ^T;

stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;

And this is the view of my keyboard viewer:

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Answer 3

Melophage

Level 5

7,213 points

Apr 11, 2014 11:16 AM in response to dnalordnalor

dnalordnalor,

thanks for your reply. Does your MacBook Pro have an International English keyboard, as shown here?

The output from the stty command shows that your interrupt character (Ctrl C) has not been mapped to something else.

When Keyboard Viewer is active, and you press down the Control key, does Keyboard Viewer change the colour of the “^” key from white to grey, and make the two orange keys white? (The orange colour of those two keys means that they’re treated as “dead” keys; for example, pressing the apostrophe key followed by pressing the e key would result in an é character. To get just an apostrophe, you would need to press the apostrophe key followed by pressing the space bar.)

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Answer 4

dnalordnalor Author

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Apr 11, 2014 10:53 PM in response to Melophage

Melophage,

The keyboard is identical to the one you showed me except there's an "eject" button instead of the power on the top right corner.

When keyboard viewer is active, pressing either ctrl or alt doesnt turn the keyboard grey (though i can boot into disk choice mode if i held alt for long so that key is fine from a hardware point)

it's worth to note that i can't take a screenshot using the left (cmd+shift+4/3) when i use them, it makes a sound that is similar to when you use a "tab" completion on command line but there's nothing to show, it's sort of an error sound i think? but it actually works with the right cmd/shift buttons. not sure why...

Yesterday when i tried taking a screenshot of keyboard viewer the orange colors immediately disapear when i use cmd+shift+4 and shows back when i'm out of the selective screenshot mode. i had to use GRAB to do so. not sure if this is relevant.

PS: i replaced the drive of this macbook with a compeltely new drive and used internet recovery to retrieve the base of the system and then downloaded maverick on my imac, burned into a usb stick and installed it on this macbook. could it be a driver issue or something related to that ?

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Answer 5

dnalordnalor Author

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Apr 12, 2014 5:58 AM in response to dnalordnalor

i just noticed that it's not just the ctrl button.

i have the viewer on and if i press :

Left shift
Left ctrl
Left Alt

they do not turn grey on viewer..

i booted into disk using "alt"so it's not a hardware issue...

PS: could it be some sort of mapping ? i can't type a quotation mark and a character right next to it as it immediately turns it into a special character. for example "a <<--- if i dont press SPACE after the quotation mark that would appear as ä <<--

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Answer 6

Melophage

Level 5

7,213 points

Apr 12, 2014 11:09 AM in response to dnalordnalor

dnalordnalor,

the quotation mark behaviour is completely normal for the “U.S. International – PC” input source. If you would generally prefer to avoid dead keys, you should switch your input source to either “Australian” or “U.S. Extended” instead — they both do provide dead keys (a few in the former, many in the latter), but the Alt key has to be pressed to access them.

I don’t know if OS X comes by default with the ability to turn off the functions of individual Shift and Alt keys. (There’s only one Control key on a MacBook Pro.) Do you have any key remapping software installed, such as KeyRemap4MacBook or DoubleCommand?

Have you tried running your MacBook Pro’s Apple Hardware Test, to see if it can detect anything amiss with your hardware?

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Answer 7

dnalordnalor Author

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Apr 13, 2014 2:02 AM in response to Melophage

ah i didn't know that about the us international input source. thanks for the heads up!

as for key remapping, no absolutely none.. it's a newly installed maverick there's absolutely nothing on it yet.

i will check the hardware test and get back to you. thanks for the heads up

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