weird keygrabbing behavior with kwin/kde on laptop

[Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper <vR@movingparts.net>]

I've been beating my head against the wall on this for a good couple of
weeks and I'm really wondering if anyone else is seeing anything like
this.  I'm running debian unstable with kde on my laptop.  During the
day, I use an external keyboard and mouse via an IBM port replicator
(not docking station).  During the evening, etc., I just use my laptop's
built-in keyboard and mouse.  Most of the time, I have evolution and
opera running on different workspaces.

While I'm using an external mouse and keyboard, I have no issues
whatsoever with changing workspaces via keystroke (I have alt+{1-6}
bound to change workspaces).  But when I use the built-in keyboard/mouse
of my laptop, kwin/kde seems to lose my keybindings once in a while. 
For example, using an external keyboard/mouse, if I rapidly do alt+1,
alt+2, alt+3, alt+4, etc., over and over, kwin/kde has no problem
switching to the bound workspace.  But if I'm using the builtin
keyboard/mouse, after a couple of workspace switches, the keybindings
just stop working.  I then have to use the workspace panel to switch to
the workspace I want, then it seems that my keybindings are okay until I
switch workspaces a couple of times.

I can't for the life of me figure out why this would be happening and
I'm hoping somebody will either say "yeah, that happens to me too and
this is what causes it" or something of the sort.  It boggles my mind
why this would consistently happen when I'm not using an external
keyboard and mouse.  I mean, kde shouldn't know the difference between
when I'm "docked" or not, should it?


-- 
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Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
bash$ :(){ :|:&};:
Numbers 6:24-26