Keyboard no longer working after VM crash

Hey folks...

I'm running a MBP with Parallels 3.0, emulating WinXP Pro. I've had no real issues with Parallels so far (many months), but last night the VM crashed, and upon restart I lost the use of my keyboard. To be clear, I can use the keyboard in OSX just fine, but inside of the WinXP window it is virtually ignored. I say virtually because I can right click with Ctrl-Shift (mouse/trackpad works fine), but trying to type any text does nothing or Alt-Tab does nothing.

I've tried all of these:
- restarting the VM
- restarting the MBP (also tried clearing PRAM)
- upgrading Parallels to the latest (5584)
- using an external keyboard

I've also poked around in the Windows Device Manager. It says I have a PS/2 keyboard. I haven't found any options in the VM configuration to change anything to do with the keyboard.

I've tried searching for this issue extensively, but haven't found anything helpful. I must be missing something. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!
Pete.

 

Have you re-installed Parallels Tools?

 

Thanks for the quick response! Yes, I re-installed Parallels Tools as part of the upgrade to 5584. And I just did it again just now to be sure. No change, unfortunately.

 

You can try uninstalling 5584, then reinstalling it . Reboot mac and start parallels again.

 

Hmmm... So, when you say uninstall 5584, do you mean uninstall Parallels completely or something else? Wouldn't that nuke my WinXP install? I guess I don't really understand the relationship between the VM and partitions enough.

That said, I'd be surprised if this was related to 5584, since I only upgraded *after* the problem occurred on 5582.

(I neglected to mention that I'm still running Tiger, for whatever that's worth.)

 

Found it: FilterKeys!

Doh. I had FilterKeys turned on (cuz I have a silly habit of hitting the Shift key a lot of times in a row when thinking). I was poking around and noticed the FilterKeys icon in the System Tray. I clicked on it and turned off FilterKeys and was immediately able to use the keyboard again. Turning it back on confirmed the issue. Although I've had it on for a while, so I'm not sure why it all of a sudden started failing. :-(

Anyway, happy to be productive again!