Press the pointer icon, but my xterm doesn't show it before I do something first.

I can highlight it, but my ctrl and c doesnt seem to do anything

Plug the N900 into your PC & try to delete it through the N900 driver.

Ctrl-C interrupts the current process. In the terminal, use the graphical menu to copy and paste.

I had a similar problem which I fixed by connecting the phone to my linux machine and running fsck.vfat.

I first turned off the phone, plugged in the USB cable, turned on the phone so that the internal and external flash drives automounted.

After backing up my data, I did a "df" to identify the internal flash. It turned out to be /dev/sdc in my case.

I therefore ran "sudo fsck.vfat -a /dev/sdc" three or four times (until no error/correction messages showed up) with the device mounted.

Finally I unmounted and rebooted the phone and everything worked as it should:-)

If you're using Windows I unfortunately don't know how to do something similar.

Best wishes

I don't know how the N900's keyboard or Terminal is.. but Ctrl+Shift+C is usually the copy on a desktop Linux terminal window. Ctrl+Shift+V and Ctrl+Insert are typical paste commands...

Maybe these work?

ok guys, thanks for all your help.... finally got the copy and paste working in the terminal too

i decided on a reboot... initially didnt fix it
second reboot seems to have done the trick, im all workin fine again.

very strange thing to have happen, maybe somehow the internal flash memory temporarily crashed for some reason?

i dont know, i didnt like it, but im fixed for now

WAIT.

you posted here without rebooting?

omg.

who votes for iq-test to enter the forum?

No.

I rebooted once, and I still had the same problem. I did some reading here, posted here (twice) searched my device endlessly for some kind of option to set the "read only" memory to read / write without joy, tried moving / copying / deleting various files over and over, tried playing various movies... all without success.

I then rebooted a SECOND time. Everything worked. That all ok by you?

Furthermore, even if a reboot 'fixes' it there's still an underlying problem that's worth putting some effort into understanding.