Keyboard Manager not working unless turned off and on again

[BenMH]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.55.1

Running as admin

• Yes

Area(s) with issue?

Keyboard Manager

Steps to reproduce

Sometimes the remapped keyboard shortcut I set up doesn't work. I hit caps lock and it turns caps lock on :( It's supposed to map to 'alt+space' and therefore open my launcher.

This has happened maybe 6 times in the last few weeks. To fix it I need to toggle Keyboard Manager off and on again. Simply restarting Powertoys or even Windows doesn't do it. Oh, and I do think the problem mostly happens after booting windows. But no matter how long you wait it doesn't kick in, you always have to toggle it
PowerToysReport_2022-02-08-15-03-52.zip
.

✔️ Expected Behavior

The caps lock key to be mapped to alt + space

❌ Actual Behavior

the caps lock key turns on and off

Other Software

well, alt space opens UELI 8.19.0

[BlakeRBM]

I have a similar issue, but it only affects the remap shortcut section of the keyboard manager; the single key remaps still operate as per usual. Toggling on/off doesn't work, but restarting the app does.

[xmo-odoo]

I also hit that issue regularly. I've remapped Caps to Control via the powertoys, and once in a while I'll come unglued and reset to Caps behaviour, even though the keyboard manager remains enabled. Turning it off and on again does fix it, but obviously it wastes time first screwing up whatever you were trying to do (under the assumption the shortcut would work) then having to go through PowerToys to reset it.

I've not looked but I assume the setting toggles a registry key, and windows updates screw that up (either because PT/KM updates the wrong registry key or because Windows updates suck). If that's the case, maybe PT/KM should read the keys on startup to check that they match the config? Or just unconditionally set them to be sure?

Either way despite being a somewhat rare occurrence it's a pretty frustrating one.

[parano666]

Same for my specific usage: an app has "global shortcuts" and so in this specific app I set alt+u and alt+i, then in powertoys I remap volume up and down to alt+u and alt+i.

Even if powertoys is set to start at startup, I have to manually boot powertoy after each restart of windows and trigger the keyboard function off then on to get it to work. Then I randomly sometimes have to do that off on thing once in a while (not after a restart).

[BenMH]

Does anybody have the problem where restarting powertoys doesn't fix it, but specifically restarting keyboard manager does? That's what struck me as weird with my case....

[xmo-odoo]

Does anybody have the problem where restarting powertoys doesn't fix it, but specifically restarting keyboard manager does? That's what struck me as weird with my case....

I always reset via the keyboard manager, but since it sometimes breaks on startup I assume I also have that issue. I'll try to restart powertoys next time it occurs to see what happens.

[parano666]

Does anybody have the problem where restarting powertoys doesn't fix it, but specifically restarting keyboard manager does? That's what struck me as weird with my case....

I always reset via the keyboard manager, but since it sometimes breaks on startup I assume I also have that issue. I'll try to restart powertoys next time it occurs to see what happens.

That's exactly my problem: on off does the trick everytime here.

[jaimecbernardo]

We're trying to fix some of the Keyboard Manager issues soon. Some are opened where keyboard manager stops working after a while.
I've tried replicating with the Keyboard Manager settings that were sent, but without success.

[xmo-odoo]

@jaimecbernardo

We're trying to fix some of the Keyboard Manager issues soon. Some are opened where keyboard manager stops working after a while. I've tried replicating with the Keyboard Manager settings that were sent, but without success.

Is there any sort of instrumentation in powertoys we could use? (assuming we remember to, I hit the issue again a week or two back but completely forgot to try and restart powertoys to see what that'd do).

[jaimecbernardo]

There are some logs in the bug report, but they seem to indicate nothing useful for these sort of errors.
I think what might be happening is that Windows might be killing the lowlevel keyboard hook we register for some reason (high CPU load?) when it takes a bit more to respond. I wonder if this makes sense.

[xmo-odoo]

There are some logs in the bug report, but they seem to indicate nothing useful for these sort of errors. I think what might be happening is that Windows might be killing the lowlevel keyboard hook we register for some reason (high CPU load?) when it takes a bit more to respond. I wonder if this makes sense.

Would delaying the hooking process be a possibility in case windows is unhappy with it happening so early on restart?

[jaimecbernardo]

It's pretty weird that it's getting called while restarting, though... If you wait for your computer to start everything before pressing a key, does the issue still occur?

[BenMH]

Hi, For me the issue still occurs. After a month or so of being aware of this problem, I've realised in my case that it happens consistently every time I restart.

[xmo-odoo]

It's pretty weird that it's getting called while restarting, though... If you wait for your computer to start everything before pressing a key, does the issue still occur?

It does yes.

[nguyentranbao-ct]

This happened to me regularly, but I was able to quickly fix it by lock screen with Win+L and re-login.
I also tried to downgrade the app to v0.45.0, this issue has never happened again.

[BenMH]

Thanks for the suggestion; I tried downgrading to 0.45.0 but sadly it didn't work for me. It's a bit frustrating, the keyboard manager is pretty much the only thing I want powertoys for!

[Jay-o-Way]

Is this still an issue with the latest version? /needinfo

[parano666]

It has been for me. Although.. yesterday after a reboot it was working right away which is new.. has it been fix in the last update.. maybe. We'll see in the next days.

[xmo-odoo]

It has been for me. Although.. yesterday after a reboot it was working right away which is new.. has it been fix in the last update.. maybe. We'll see in the next days.

FWIW for me it's always been somewhat inconsistent.

In my experience it does not work early during startup, but if you let everything settle down it hooks properly. My most common issue is that I'll start the machine, lauch the main applications (including a browser) then as soon as the browser has started C-t to create a new tab. I have Caps remapped to Control, the mapping is not correctly setup yet, and I get nonsense as Windows sends regular (but uppercase) keypresses to the browser window.

Then it can fail seeingly randomly during use, I've not managed to notice any pattern to the latter.

[parano666]

Well it is definitely not fixed: back to the normal behavior, which is turning on and off keyboard manager as needed randomly sometimes many times per day.

[microsoft-github-policy-service]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 5 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 5 days of this comment.

[microsoft-github-policy-service]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 5 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 5 days of this comment.

[parano666]

I'm keeping this thread alive. I still have issues.

[xmo-odoo]

Ditto, still don't have any hint at what would cause it tho. For me it definitely commonly happens before bootup (which might be attributed to pressing a remapped key between windows boot and KM startup), but it also occurs somewhat randomly long after boot, in which case the KM hook seems to stop for an instant.

Which is frustrating when remapping capslock to control: KM comes unglued, so a press of capslock switches caps mode on, but further presses are correctly converted to control. Thus the computer remains in caps mode. To fix this I have to disable KM, press capslock (to toggle it off), and re-enable KM.

[Theo-Silfa]

Same here. Under high load keyboard manager stops remapping my Caps lock to Ctrl. I have to open it, switch it off, toggle caps lock and switch it on again. Incredibly annoying.

[thewaliii]

Since 2022! Why this is not fixed?
Keymanager doesn't work unless I restart the whole app!
Please FIX this!
Win 11 + PowerToys latest versions.

[TheJoeFin]

Is this issue still relevant in v0.73? /needinfo

[parano666]

Is this issue still relevant in v0.73? /needinfo

Here it's still happening, although less frequently.

[TheJoeFin]

/bugreport

[microsoft-github-policy-service]

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!

[parano666]

Still active. Will.try to bug report.

[parano666]

PowerToysReport_2023-09-28-12-41-55.zip
PowerToysReport_2023-09-28-12-41-11.zip

here is bug report after a windows 11 reboot, when it wasn't working.

another bugreport after "on-off" in keyboard manager which fixed it.

[parano666]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 5 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 5 days of this comment.

Hey dumb bot, I'm not the author but I've been keeping this alive with a bug report! Will i have to post every 5 days?

[BenMH]

Hello I might be the author? Can I keep it alive with a similar reply? To be honest I gave up using it ...

…

On Wed, 4 Oct 2023 at 01:18, parano666 ***@***.***> wrote: This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for *5 days*. It will be closed if no further activity occurs *within 5 days of this comment*. Hey dumb bot, I'm not the author but I've been keeping this alive with a bug report! Will i have to post every 5 days? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#16173 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA25JFKCWJHHR3SXWZ6QCZLX5SMNTAVCNFSM5N2SJEXKU5DIOJSWCZC7NNSXTN2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQ5TCNZUGU4DOMZZGAZA> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[parano666]

Hello I might be the author? Can I keep it alive with a similar reply? To be honest I gave up using it ...
…
On Wed, 4 Oct 2023 at 01:18, parano666 @.> wrote: This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 5 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 5 days of this comment. Hey dumb bot, I'm not the author but I've been keeping this alive with a bug report! Will i have to post every 5 days? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#16173 (comment)>, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA25JFKCWJHHR3SXWZ6QCZLX5SMNTAVCNFSM5N2SJEXKU5DIOJSWCZC7NNSXTN2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQ5TCNZUGU4DOMZZGAZA . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: @.>

Works way better btw. Mainly on reboot only now :)

[xnzhang-33]

I want to join this issue as similar situation happening.

And I want to also report that, as a wireless keyboard user, this issue will disappear with an off & on to the keyboard, before it occurs again.

And I suppose this problem comes from the Shortcuts Remapping in KBM loses it functions but Key Remapping does not.

Although I believe it is a very minor issue, still want to see it resolved though.

By the way, have anyone been trying to use AutoHotKeys for the same remapping, will this problem persist?

[imornar]

still happens windows 11, PT 0.79, suddently stops working

[LmioF]

I encountered a similar issue on Windows 11 (I didn't have this problem on my Windows 10 system). To resolve this, disable the software's built-in auto-start feature and use Windows Task Scheduler to launch it 20 seconds after user login (by the way, PowerToys also uses Task Scheduler to auto-start). You can set up the task similarly to how PowerToys' auto-start task is configured (you need to enable the software's built-in auto-start feature first and then check its auto-start configuration file in Task Scheduler). The only change needed is to add a 20-second delay in the "Triggers" section to delay the program start. This ensures that PowerToys starts last and overrides any conflicting software.