New mplayer difficulties

[MR ZenWiz]

My Xubuntu 14.04.3 laptop began to display an odd problem with mplayer
about a week ago.  Seems that the keyboard commands no longer work at
all.

I'm not sure why, but there is this error message from mplayer:

Detected file format: MP2/3 (MPEG audio layer 2/3) (libavformat)
[mp3 @ 0x7f0912ab0600]max_analyze_duration reached
[lavf] stream 0: audio (mp3), -aid 0
Load subtitles in audio/
Selected audio codec: MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 layers I, II, III [mpg123]
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 16000->176400)
AO: [pulse] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Video: no video
Starting playback...
A:  -0.0 (unknown) of 1090.3 (18:10.2)  0.2%
Dead key input on file descriptor 0     <<<<<<<< This is the error...
A:  18.3 (18.2) of 1090.3 (18:10.2)  0.6%

It then plays fine, but the only way to stop it is via ^C.

Anyone have any idea what this might be?  It works fine on both of my
desktops that run the same OS and software.

Thanks.
MR