Windows Vista/7 64-bit Modifier keys (shift/alt) being ignored

Discussion in 'Bugs' started by iconoplast, Jan 21, 2012.

  1. iconoplast

    iconoplast Member

    The thread title pretty well covers it for the curious. I'm running the game through Steam, have the expansion, and no mods are installed. (By the by, running with -opengl lets the Steam overlay activate via shift-tab, so it seems that it's the game not recognizing the input.) This started as an intermittent problem that I had suspected was related to frequently changing windows, but when I sat down to try testing it, it stopped disappearing and has existed since. The modifier keys are also ignored when setting hotkeys. Ultimately, I could work around most of this, but not being able to split item stacks is getting to me.

    For the detail minded, here's what I've tried to fix it. None of these have changed the problem.

    1) Switching between fullscreen and windowed mode as well as running exclusively in each
    2) Running with -opengl
    3) Running with -debug-mode
    4) Endless different combinations of game type options -- difficulty (and other options on that screen), varying skills, names, and pretty well any other variable I could think of that can be set at the beginning of the game.
    5) Having Steam verify game cache integrity
    6) Yelling at the computer (which never works for anything but makes me feel slightly better for ~3 seconds)

    Since I don't have another machine handy to compare and I can't reproduce whatever made it stop happening before, I'm out of helpful ideas. I'm also not familiar enough with the game structure to go poking files about, and the debug-mode doesn't seem to give me data that would directly relate, so thinking back to my time in the QA trenches isn't helping me any further here either.
     
  2. iconoplast

    iconoplast Member

    A resolution: this isn't the game's fault! Apparently, the Rdio desktop app hijacks the modifier keys (even when idle), but only does so to some programs. Since this is their bug I'll take it up with them (those really curious can see the info I found about it here), and I can cease gnashing my teeth and threatening the computer with pictures of melted transistors. A win for everyone!
     
    Daynab likes this.