Keyboard Manager sometimes doesn't map keys

[zhizhongpu]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.57.2

Running as admin

• Yes

Area(s) with issue?

Keyboard Manager

Steps to reproduce

This bug occurs when I literally did nothing. Thank god this only happens from time to time (maybe once a week). When shortcut mappings stop working, I go to Powertoys and turn off the function and turn back on again, but this never solves the issue. Every time this bug occurs, I have to close powertoys and restart the application to be able to use the function again.

✔️ Expected Behavior

Expect shortcuts Win+C to be mapped to Win + 4.

❌ Actual Behavior

Shortcuts aren't mapped. The original shortcut Win + C were activated, instead of Win +4

Other Software

No response

[jaimecbernardo]

To overload Windows shortcuts you might need to run PowerToys as admin. Even then, there are shortcuts which Windows won't let override.
Does this help? /needinfo

[zhizhongpu]

Thanks for your response. Somehow the function works perfectly 99% of the time, and only stops working ~once a week, so I’m not sure if admin authorization is the problem.

[jaimecbernardo]

We can see if we got something in the logs /bugreport
When it happens again, please try to see if you can connect the event to something. It might be hard to try and replicate it like this.

[ghost]

Hi there!

We need a bit more information to really debug this issue. Can you add a "Report Bug" zip file here? You right click on our system tray icon and just go to report bug. Then drag the zipfile from your desktop onto the GitHub comment box in this issue. Thanks!

[zhizhongpu]

PowerToysReport_2022-04-18-12-53-59.zip
Thank you!

[zhizhongpu]

Right. I agree it's hard to understand why. I've been trying to catch a pattern but haven't had any success.

[TheWall89]

I was just going to report a similar behavior on my side. I believe this is also the same problem reported in #17850 .
In my specific case, shortcuts remapping stop working, but a single key remapping keeps working just fine. For example, I have Win+U and Win+I to remap respectively Ctrl+Shift+Left and Ctrl+Shift+Right. These two stop working randomly.
But my remapping of Caps Lock to Win keeps working just fine.

[ID-VerNe]

I have the same problem. It will stop working from time to time. Restarting the software can't solve it. You need to restart the computer

[ghost]

I've been also having this problem for months and can't figure out what exactly triggers it. There's an easy workaround that worked 100% of the time, at least for me: press Win+L and unlock your user. You shouldn't need to actually restart PowerToys, or your system, or re-log. Whatever happens internally with your OS and/or PowerToys when you go from the lock screen to your desktop could point to a proper solution. This also seems to be a duplicate of #17344.

[jaimecbernardo]

@vieuxtemps it's possible that we're getting some key or modifier that gets "locked" and that's what's causing it. When it happens, does trying to press and unpress the keys mapped to/from help in restoring the KBM to its normal state?

[ghost]

It happened again today and the modifiers were behaving normally without being stuck (i.e. I can case toggle with shift, copy/paste with Ctrl as usual, popup the start menu with Win), so that doesn't seem to be the case. The exact same bindings stopped working this time as well.

[jaimecbernardo]

The difficult thing here is being able to repro these myself. Can it be perhaps something related to pressing a new shortcut really quickly before releasing the previous one?

[ghost]

The only clue I have is that it seems to happen more frequently right after I repeatedly press Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab to switch tabs on my browser, followed by Ctrl+Q (which is mapped to Alt+F4) to close it. This is usually when I discover that the mapping stopped working. I'll update the issue in case I figure anything else out.

[ratataque]

Hello, I'm still having this issue. Is there some updates ?

[ID-VerNe]

Hello, I'm still having this issue. Is there some updates ?
My main machine no longer uses powertoys, so I chose to use autohotkey for custom key bindings. However, this feature still occasionally fails on my office computer.

[TheJoeFin]

Combining similar keyboard issues
/dup #17344

[microsoft-github-policy-service]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists on this Issue Tracker. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread. Thanks for your report!