zorin9 CTRL+A (plus ctrl+c, ctrl+x etc) not working/ignored

Dear Zorin Team!

I can't seem to use the ctrl, my alt, or my super keys in combinations.

None work/seem to exist. The only thing functional is the Ctrl+arrows to switch desktop.

I installed a Zorin 9 lite to my laptop with two separate usb keyboards attached to it (both wired+less), and under different OSes all is working fine--> i can rule out hardware issues.

What I miss:
-ctrl+a to select all items/all text in a box or anything in graphic progs
-ctrl+z to undo edits in texteditors, browsers textboxes when filling out forms
-ctrl+c/v/x for general clipboard commands
-ctrl+1-9 in numkeyboard to switch to any given number workspace in a 3x3 workspace configuration (e.g. ctrl+3 to jump to 3rd desktop, ctrl+9 for the 9th and so on..)

What happens instead:
-Zorin acts like I haven't even pressed any CTRL key at all. Ctrl+a or ctrl+c in thunar file manager brings up the "find file by filename box" in the lower right hand corner.
-Sometimes it pretends like I'm holding down the SHIFT key instead (this mostly happened when I was at the keyboard shortcuts setting or in compiz bindings and I asked it to grab the shortcut I pressed)
-windows/super key also acted like it wasn't even pressed and/or Shift key was used instead...

What I tried so far:

-keyboard layouts: all UK/US keyboard layouts one after the other
-tried to redefine/delete compiz shortcuts (as I read with other ubuntu versions that maybe the window manager took over on the shortcuts (gnome vs. mutter?)
-in one desperate measure I even tried to completely uninstall compiz, but that solved none, so i just returned to a backup made before
-googled countless hours, both with zorin/ubuntu keywords, but the keywords are so general that none of the articles/forum pages seemed related to my case or gave me even partial success solutions
-system upgraded in the hope it's only a temporary issue (the original install was a zorin9 lite, but after changing the repository settings to offer system upgrades to any new version I accepted the proposed Wily update, and since then it introduces itself as Zorin 11)

Honestly I'm almost without ideas. Once I experienced similar issues under xubuntu but I can't remember if I were able to solve it or just switched os instead.
Apart from switching to some oldier edition of zorin (in a separate install also to ubuntu), and hoping things will work, and with incremental update/upgrade I can find the culprit/reason that breaks the keys functions, I'm without ideas.

Please advise
Greg

I think you have a very dodgy install - I have no such issues with keyboard commands.

Can you supply us with your machine and keyboard details?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5449

hmm..!

The machine is a Gateway NO20 core2duo subnotebook with 2 usb ports.

On 1 usb there´s an external hard drive running the zorin 9 64bit (booted the live disc, installed and changed at package-manager´s repositories to allow the upgrade to non-LTS versions(since then it says is a zorin11 (15wily)

The other usb port has a powered 7port hub in it, with the

GK35 Ghost keyboard i´m having issues with, and a nano receiver for a separate
Logitech K400r wireless keyboard.

Before you asked about the specs I haven´t even considered that it may be a driver issue.
I was more concentrating on the charmap/layout and also thought that all physical keyboards are bound/assigned with the same layout config.

But it turns out that the built-in keyboard of the laptop and the Logitech wireless one do function correctly!

The issue is only present with this GK35 keyboard.

Unfortunately there´s not much info on the official chinese site (Shenzhen Tianjie Electronic ltd. GK35 ghost)
No support or product info.

Of the keyboard layouts: these ] I tried all but with the same experience each case.

It seems it´s not a hw error but a driver one as someone else posted it also: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.p ... 53769.html

I checked the bottom 2 links of it but one seemed dead, the other showed a site where someone reverse engineered the whole linux driver for a different keyboard.

Although his approach may work on this keyboard aswell and I have some basic experience of the old 2006 edition of suse linux-es runlevel editor, I still believe it´s way out of my league

However I was not able to find anything else related via google and this is the only full sized keyboard I have with numpad

Apart from a driver change is there any other way to change the returning scancodes the keyboard produces?

We have 7-port or more usb hubs at work and no peripheral will work correctly unless it is in a usb slot on the machine in Windows!

I had that idea aswell, so I plugged it in alone directly to the laptops own ports.
I tried it also after a complete shutdown so that it be present from the very first moments of boot.
but, there was of no difference. Also as with the other guy, it behaved correctly in grub. So something gets loaded by ubuntu (zorin) afterwards which it is not happy about.

As a side note: the only trouble I had with multiport hubs if they were powered ones was that it didn´t really like 2+ data devices on itself (2 hdds or pendrives).
Other input/output devices usually behaved well alongside each other.
But that I mostly only experienced under windows.
Also direct booting from hub is a hit and miss sometimes as the bios doesn´t always detect drives before grub for selection.