Small Victory With Flaky Keyboard Shortcuts and FYI
If you are experiencing flaky keyboard shortcuts in Windows, read the following:
Over the past several years the keyboard shortcuts on my Windows PC were incredibly flaky. For instance, I would have to restart the 1Password Helper about 5 to 10 times per day because CTRL+\ would stop working. I could not fault 1Password as other applications would break as well. So, I had a routine of restarting helper processes across the board to fix these issues.
Today, I finally found the culprit. I work in an engineering organization where each of us are hobbyist programmers. A critical part of my job is an Excel workbook developed by a co-worker that uses a set of complex VBA tools for tracking and managing WIP in our factory. I offhand noticed that this app has a background refresh and each time that occurred, my shortcuts broke. I dug into the VBA and found a single line that was causing this headache:
Application.SendKeys ("%Y{RETURN}")
So, if you are experiencing similar issues. Check to see if you are running any apps that run VBA. If so, search through the projects for the SendKeys method and try commenting that line out or disabling that particular project.
Comments
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@DBrown Thank you. I just wanted to capture this here since it has been causing me a headache for a while now.
Also, here is a Microsoft article documenting this as a Bug. They only mention the NUM LOCK and SCROLL LOCK keys, but I believe it affects more than those keys as observed in other app shortcuts.
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Thanks again!
Don't be surprised if chunks of this info turn up in the next revision of a user's guide. :)
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