Can someone try the following to help diagnose this. Install /usr/share/X11/xkb-chinook (from my earlier post) and create the symlinks as per my earlier post. Then try

setxkbmap -device 4 -I -I/usr/share/X11/xkb-chinook -rules base -model pc105 -layout us

where the device is appropriate for your machine (run hildon-im-xkbtool --list to find out). Let me know if that works. If it doesn't can you try:

setxkbmap -I -I/usr/share/X11/xkb-chinook -rules base -model pc105 -layout us -print|xkbcomp -i 4 - $DISPLAY

where again, you first setup the symlinks as per my earlier post and also change -i 4 to the appropriate device. Let me know if that works.

And if someone can post the an strace of when it doesn't work and compare it against the working strace that I posted, that would also help diagnose this.

If neither of these work, I have an idea of what it could be.