Arrow key locking

[Karisa]

I just had a 1.4b MoF Easy run ruined during Kanako's 4th nonspell because of this.

It seems one of my arrow keys (usually the left arrow, but it occurred once with the up arrow) will sometimes act as if it's always pressed within a particular game. It's rare, but it's occurred several times by now (only on my new computer that I've had for the last 4 months, and only when it's running Windows not Mac). Perhaps on 6 or so different days, with it occurring twice on two of those days.

I don't think this is a keyboard issue (such as the "ghosting" some people complain about, that's fixed by pressing the key again), since if it occurs, the only way I've found to stop it is to close the game and re-open it. The key will function normally if I alt-tab or otherwise switch out of the game, but it remains stuck when I switch back.

Does anyone know what's causing this? And preferably a way to prevent this from occurring, or a way to fix it when it does occur (without losing my progress within the game)?

[Seppo Hovi]

I don't know the cause, and hence I have no idea of a permanent fix, but I do know how to fix it whenever it occurs.

When it happens, press the equivalent, or the opposite arrow key on your numpad. (I'm not sure which one it is, since I always press both to be sure.) This should do the trick. I have no idea what to do if you're playing with a controller, though.

[Zil]

This used to happen to me intermittently before I started using a controller, and was indeed one of the reasons I switched in the first place. Always with the left arrow or the shift key, though in my case, simply pressing the affected key again would make it stop, so maybe it's not the same thing. What I did notice was that it never happened in games where I didn't use focus, either PoDD or no-focus runs in something else (that is, not pressing shift solved the problem for the left arrow as well as the shift key itself), so I think the shift key may have been behind it somehow. Something that might work (though I never tried it myself) is remapping your keys to, say, focus with z, shoot with x, etc. I can't promise that'll work but it may be worth a try. Otherwise I've no idea. Though I guess you could always join the dark side and start playing with a controller as well. Might not be ideal for scoring though.

(Why am I awake right now?)

edit: Seppo got in before me, but everything I said should still apply I guess. I'd assumed you'd have already tried pressing the same key again, but yeah, make sure to try that if you didn't. And I don't think this can happen with controllers (as you can probably gather from what I said already). At least, I've been cured ever since I switched.

[Karisa]

When it happens, press the equivalent, or the opposite arrow key on your numpad. (I'm not sure which one it is, since I always press both to be sure.) This should do the trick. I have no idea what to do if you're playing with a controller, though.

How do you press a numpad arrow on a laptop?

[Seppo Hovi]

That I cannot give an intelligent answer to. Some laptops have numpad, but it seems that yours isn't one of those.

I guess buying an USB keyboard with a numpad would work, althought you'd probably want to try remapping the keys first.

[redlakitu]

I am curious... Do you remember if this happens regardless of which game you're playing? Did it ever happen in Touhou 06-08?

[Oh]

This might be a problem with USB keyboards. I had the same happen to me many times.
I heard that PS2 keyboards don't have this issues though. Just try to press the button again if you get stuck.

[Karisa]

I am curious... Do you remember if this happens regardless of which game you're playing? Did it ever happen in Touhou 06-08?

Yes. It happened twice in IN, which was one of the days when it happened twice in one day. I also recall it occurring with EoSD once, two or three times with the SA-TD games (notably, alt-tab seems to fix it for sufficiently new games, but not MoF), and I think with Anex86 running PoDD once.

It's never occurred with non-Touhou games though, or browsing the internet etc., which means it could be related to key combinations (for example, I'm not sure if any other games I play involve the same fast-paced switching of arrow keys). Or it could just be that Touhou games are what I primarily use Windows for.

[Wriggle]

Do you use AutoHotkey? I've noticed it can happen if your laptop isn't handling everything properly and it's AutoHotkey that glitches instead, but I guess that's not the case. Also, in all laptops I played, some combinations with the main keys of Touhou games weren't possible, so I've been using AutoHotkey since... ever (not really, but 90% of my Touhou time), and barely had problem with it, so I don't know exactly if these "impossible" combination of keys could cause a key ghosting. The keys I use to play are TabQWE for ShiftZXC, and IJKL for arrows, though in my previous laptop I had to use UHJK for the arrows instead. So basically, AutoHotkey can be either the cause of the fix.

[Kaze_Senshi]

I rarely have this kind of issue in my notebook playing IN, but it happens at the very start of the game and it is fixed when I restart the game. I don't know what causes this problem here but it didn't happen on my old notebook, the only different thing that their keyboards have is that the new one have a new FN key to enable me to do things like increasing the screen brightness pressing FN + F5.

[Star King]

This might be a problem with USB keyboards. I had the same happen to me many times.
I heard that PS2 keyboards don't have this issues though. Just try to press the button again if you get stuck.

I don't think it's a problem USB keyboards inherently have. Because I use a USB keyboard at home and it doesn't have this problem.

If anything this seems to happen a lot with laptops (my home computer is a desktop). Not sure though.

[Karisa]

Do you use AutoHotkey?

No, I've never tried it.

As for key combinations, I've had issues with pressing three or four arrow keys at once (some or all of them act as if they aren't pressed), or other nearby keys like that, but that's never needed in Touhou games. And it returns to normal as soon as fewer than three keys are pressed.