Comment 5 for bug 291612

I am experiencing the same issue on a Zepto 6625wd. My system doesn't crash, but after pressing the up or down volume keys gnome no longer responds to key presses, although the mouse pointer is still responsive. Gnome becomes responsive again if I switch to a virtual terminal and then back again.
I was following https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/261721 (of which this bug was marked as a duplicate) as that bug seemed to be closely related. However, it seems that the 2.6.27-8 kernel contains a fix for #261721 that has not solved my issue and so this bug report has been removed as a duplicate.

As stated in the description, it seems that there is a problem with the generation of the key release event. Running xev from a failsafe terminal (straight after a reboot) and pressing the volume up key twice gives:

$ xev

...
MotionNotify event, serial 23, synthetic NO, window 0x400001,
    root 0x13b, subw 0x400002, time 432844, (48,45), root:(50,47),
    state 0x0, is_hint 0, same_screen YES

KeyPress event, serial 23, synthetic NO, window 0x400001,
    root 0x13b, subw 0x400002, time 435742, (48,45), root:(50,47),
    state 0x0, keycode 123 (keysym 0x1008ff13, XF86AudioRaiseVolume), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 26, synthetic NO, window 0x400001,
    root 0x13b, subw 0x400002, time 440055, (48,45), root:(50,47),
    state 0x0, keycode 123 (keysym 0x1008ff13, XF86AudioRaiseVolume), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyPress event, serial 26, synthetic NO, window 0x400001,
    root 0x13b, subw 0x400002, time 440055, (48,45), root:(50,47),
    state 0x0, keycode 123 (keysym 0x1008ff13, XF86AudioRaiseVolume), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

MotionNotify event, serial 26, synthetic NO, window 0x400001,
    root 0x13b, subw 0x400002, time 441488, (54,51), root:(56,53),
    state 0x0, is_hint 0, same_screen YES
...

Note that the key release event is only generated when the key is pressed for the second time.