Kinesis Advantage not being detected on Linux

Question

I looked at both of these posts: Kinesis advantage, on but no output, Kinesis Advantage keyboard fails after upgrading to systemd-221, and their issues with the Kinesis Advantage seems to be a bit different from mine. My keyboard works fine about every 5 - 10 boots, and on other occasions I need to disconnect and reconnect the keyboard multiple times till the status lights on it turn off. When the keyboard isn't working correctly all of the status lights remain on.

Motherboard: Rampage V Extreme Operating System: Arch Linux

uname -a:

Linux Odin 4.2.5-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Oct 27 08:13:28 CET 2015 x86_64 GNU/Linux

systemctl --version:

systemd 228 +PAM -AUDIT -SELINUX -IMA -APPARMOR +SMACK -SYSVINIT +UTMP +LIBCRYPTSETUP +GCRYPT +GNUTLS +ACL +XZ +LZ4 +SECCOMP +BLKID +ELFUTILS +KMOD +IDN

***UPDATE: After unsuccessfully detecting the keyboard after boot the lights are off, and lsusb shows:

Bus 003 Device 002: ID 05f3:0081 PI Engineering, Inc. Kinesis Integrated Hub

It isn't showing up in /proc/bus/input/devices either.

Unplugging and plugging it back in causes the lights to stay on still, and nothing changes in the listings above. When it's not functioning keypresses do not make a sound. It works in Windows most of the time. On occasion I do need to unplug and plug it back in with Windows. Every time I boot up the keyboard also works in the bios and rEFInd.

Anyone know of possible workarounds? Like a script that would retry detecting the keyboard, if it isn't found till it's detected?

Answer 1

I just moved the keyboard from a USB 2.0 port to a USB 3.0, and it seems to be getting detected every boot up so far. I think I've booted up 4 times since switching ports, with everyone time being successful.

Answer 2

I'm getting the exact same thing on the same setup (Kinesis Advantage with Arch Linux). It also seems to be a fair bit more reliable on the USB 3.0 port, but still far from perfect.

One extra problem I've noticed is that (regardless of USB port), once the keyboard is properly detected and working, it will reliably die when I use macros (any macros). The precise behavior is as follows:

• Keyboard connected and properly detected: Status LEDs blink of and NumLock indicator LED turns on
• Trigger a macro: NumLock LED turns off (NumLock doesn't actually turn off) but keyboard still works
  • If I then trigger another macro, keyboard dies
  • However, if I then cycle (off/on) the NumLock to get the LED to come back on, then the keyboard will work fine (and no longer die when using macros)
  • Furthermore, if I toggle the NumLock right away after connecting the keyboard, it also prevents death by macros.

So my solution is to keep plugging it in until properly detected, and then cycle the NumLock. Then it works fine.