Keyboard shortcut causes Ctrl key to act stuck

[jjc092]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.56.2

Running as admin

• Yes

Area(s) with issue?

Keyboard Manager

Steps to reproduce

Create a keyboard manager shortcut "Ctrl + any key" (specifically "Ctrl", not "Ctrl (Right)" or "Ctrl (Left)"), then trigger this shortcut using right ctrl.

✔️ Expected Behavior

The trigger to work with either left ctrl or right ctrl

❌ Actual Behavior

The shortcut worked as expected, but afterward the computer behaved as if the ctrl key was still being held. This behavior continued until left ctrl was pressed and released. The issue only occurred when the shortcut was triggered using right ctrl.

I was able to reproduce this on another computer, the only difference being that right ctrl had to be pressed to correct the issue instead of left ctrl.

Other Software

No response

[jaimecbernardo]

Hi, We'd like to try to replicate this.
Does it happen everytime?
What specific mapping is being used to cause this?
/needinfo

[jjc092]

Yes, it happens every time. I first noticed the issue using “Ctrl+PgUp” and “Ctrl+PgDn” as shortcuts to adjust the volume. After I would trigger the shortcut with right ctrl, links would open in new tabs and keys like S and P would activate the save and print shortcuts, as if ctrl was still being held down. I tested it with Ctrl + various other keys, and it seems to happen no matter what the shortcut is and what action it triggers, even if I set it to “Undefined”.

Out of curiosity, I just tried it with shift and had the same problem. After creating a “Shift+some key” shortcut and triggering it using right shift, everything was typing in all caps as if shift was still being held, until I pressed left shift to “fix” it. So it appears the issue isn’t specifically related to the control key. Once again, it didn’t happen when the shortcut was defined with “Shift (Right)” or “Shift (Left)”, only with “Shift”. In the meantime, to get around the bug, I have defined redundant “Ctrl (Left)+key” and “Ctrl (Right)+key” shortcuts in place of "Ctrl+key" and have had no problems.

Lastly, if it helps, I have been able to reproduce this on both Windows 10 and 11.

[jaimecbernardo]

That's very helpful!
I'm able to replicate this.
So this happens when you use Ctrl+another key, in the mapping, instead of Ctrl(Left) or Ctrl(Right).

Then if you use Ctrl(Right) as the actual shortcut, it won't register you've actually released the key.
This is likely what's happening.
Thanks a lot for the workaround as well.

[jaimecbernardo]

[scscgit]

Also may be related to:

• [Keyboard Manager] Shortcut mapping of Ctrl+(Up|Left) to PgUp|Ctrl+PgUp stops working after alternation with Ctrl held down #16333

[KRTirtho]

Wow, until reading this issue I changed 5 of my keyboards and literally migrated to different OSs to avoid this issue. I started to notice that the issue isn't happening after re-installing Windows for the 3rd time (in 1 a year) and accidentally forgetting to install PowerToys.

I love PowerToys and I hate to see this horrible issue happening and there's very less info available about it. This issue shouldn't be kept in the backlog for over a year and must be looked into.

[ghnp5]

Came here to report the same, but I'm glad there are already a few issues raised.

I've experienced this in the past weeks, on both Windows 10 and Windows 11 with PowerToys installed, so I assumed this wouldn't be due to Windows updates, but instead due to PowerToys, since there are some functions there that handle keyboard shortcuts.

This seems to be happening with both Shift (#16487) and Ctrl (#17035), sometimes getting stuck, so I have to press them again to "resolve" this issue when that happens.