Spontaneous keyboard remapping until restart

[billbaloney]

Right, this is a new one on me. I've installed nothing recently, I run no Quick Keys-type key sequence convenience software, I have no OS-wide convenience or tweaking software of any kind, no virus software. I have no peripherals attached.

I'm using this "October 2005" TiBook that I've had for two months, and it's behaved beautifully until now. Twice today, while using extremely unchallenging apps (e.g., BBEdit, Terminal), the keyboard mapping has spontaneously changed. This is the built-in PowerBook keyboard.

I haven't been able to keep track of exactly how the mapping changes, but it's stable. QWERTY map correctly, then YUIOP map to 12345. Delete becomes forward-delete. The arrow buttons are disabled.

The system logs have no events when the change occurs. The keyboard re-mapping is consistent across applications. Nothing unusual that I can see in the System Preferences, but I might be looking in the wrong place. I don't see any other bad behavior, outside the mapping. Reboot re-establishes the correct keyboard mapping.

I have no internationalization settings on this machine; only I use it, and I only use American English.

That's it, totally mysterious to me. Any ideas? Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? TIA.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Could you possible have more than one layout "checked" in the "International" pane of the System Preferences, then possibly be hitting Command-Space in your applications?

Under the "International" pane of the System Preferences, under "Input Menu", there is a pane on my system that shows Command-Space to be the hotkey to cycle through keyboard layouts. Since you experience the same layouts in the same order, could this be it?

[billbaloney]

Very interesting idea. I don't have more than one layout selected in International, and the hot keys are greyed out. Command-Space and Command-Option-Space are tied to Spotlight, seemingly regardless of what app I'm in. I enabled the input menu in the menu bar, though, in case it does have something to do with it. Maybe next time this happens (if there is a next time) I'll be able to see a change in the input menu.

Thanks for the idea. I'll update if I find anything else out.

[simbalala]

Are you sure you're not engaging num lock? That's F6 or fn-F6 for me since I've got the system function keys set for fn.

fn-Delete = forward delete and so on, arrow keys change purposes.

Open up Keyboard Viewer (under the Flag in the top menu bar) and study the keyboard behavior with the fn key depressed it sounds a lot like you're describing.

[billbaloney]

I don't have a Keyboard Viewer in the input menu. Spotlight finds no reference to it, either. Neither does a global "find". Hmm!

Do you have more than one possible input language? I only have American English. Maybe if you have more than one possible language you get the Keyboard Viewer.

[simbalala]

It's in the International Preference Pane. "Show input menu in menu bar"