On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 8:26 AM Ed Greshko <ed.greshko@greshko.com> wrote:
On 08/28/2017 05:16 PM, Ed Greshko wrote:
> On 08/28/2017 03:27 PM, Christopher wrote:
>> One interesting thing I noticed with this: if I hit "Backspace" a few times before
>> typing the password, it seems to work on the first attempt. For some reason,
>> something seems to be polluting the input buffer during boot, which makes it behave
>> as a wrong password on the first attempt. Not sure what that could be. Also, I
>> still have no idea why it requires two subsequent attempts after that to decrypt,
>> instead of the expected one.
>>
>>
> This may or may not be your issue.  So, just something to consider.
>
> A few years ago I had the same problem not with encrypted partitions but with the
> login at the GUI prompt (I was using KDM back then)  after boot.  I had to remember
> to hit backspace a few times otherwise it would tell me the password was wrong.  I
> have a wireless USB keyboard and it turned out to be the problem with the USB
> receiver.  Replacing that fixed the issue.
>
>
Just a "funny" note here.  I had to replace my keyboard due to "cat abuse".  Unlike
my old keyboard which had a dedicated power switch this one will go to sleep after a
time.  So, now I have to remember to hit any key if it has been idle for a time.  The
first key stroke only wakes up the keyboard and does not generate an event.



Well, I hope my issue is not a hardware problem. I don't want to replace my laptop right now. It does not "feel" like a hardware problem, though. For example, sometimes I can only type a few characters into the entry field before it stops accepting characters... before I finish typing my passphrase. It's as if the field is full of some other junk from some other systemd process (at the console, I've even seen service log messages printed into the space where I'm supposed to be typing my passphrase... but I don't know if this is simply another process printing to the same console, or if it's actually corrupting the input buffer). I have to backspace to completely delete everything in the input field before I can enter my passphrase.

It "feels" like it's a startup service problem... with some other background process barfing into STDIN, instead of waiting until after I unlock the disks. It still could be hardware... it would certainly explain the symptoms, but I have not had any other issues with the laptop's keyboard, and I really really "hope" it's not. Hope does not always match reality, though. :)