I consider this a game bug, posted it in Bug Report and was told to post in tech support. Here is that post:
“Already posted a bug report about the space bar to go up (on a flying mount) will keep going up until I quit the game (1 in 10 times I can hit bunches of random keys to get it to stop, but most of the time I have to exit the game). Now I had an instance of the “move backwards” button doing the exact same thing. Yes, I HAVE tabbed out of the game to see if my OS has somehow started auto-pressing them, but no, they are NOT. Back to the game, it’s again like I was leaning on the keys. I tried “move forward” via my mouse and my toon did stop. Soon as I let up, going backwards.”
Yes, this is an intermittent problem. Meaning it happens at exactly the wrong time! Yes I have it set to NOT use any of the special keys the OS uses (which I think mostly pertains to the f-keys, if I slightly miss any number keys, I knda can lose site if my WoW screen). I know there is an "repeat"key function, but that only comes with continuous pressing and none of the is going on here… EVEN still, I tabbed out to check to see if the OS THOUGHT I was continuously pressing the key… no it was not “stuck.”
Do you have any controllers connected to the computer that have analog joysticks? If so, try twirling them while WoW is open. I have had the same things happen and found that not “calibrating” them after opening WoW for any reason causes them to act as if they were being pressed outside of the dead zone (which is usually rather tiny on a controller). Behaviour outside of WoW itself would manifest as menu highlights moving downward on their own and being unable to correct the issue with any means, etc.
This assumes you have all of the accessibility options disabled that could potentially cause things like this, such as the Mac equivalent to Windows’ “sticky keys”.
Only USB things are mouse, keyboard, headset (errr, wireless transceiver although I used it wired mostly). I think this all started with 8.1, 8.1.5 seems to have it happen more frequently.
Double checked, sticky, slow and mouse keys are all disabled (as they always have been). No menu highlight issues. I’m pretty certain it’s a game bug… especially given that it only started a few months ago.
Reset in-game keybindings (I do hate suggesting this, but it can resolve the issue. Feel free to take screenshots of the “before” settings but do not re-apply them until the issue stops happening)
If at all possible, testing with a different keyboard might be ideal.
Hmmm, think I have some issues there. First, I hit HoA 50 and you have not substituted anything for the tons of AP rewarded in world content… so that makes me want to log in ONLY for raid nights. I do check the emissaries and in the past 2 weeks I think there was one for gold, one for gear, the rest for big chunks of AP. Second, doing as you suggest would totally hobble me and as I am about half way through Heroic BoD progression I can not take such a step. NOT to mention that it is very intermittent, I can go days without seeing it, then it happens. BUT it always DOES happen. AND I have yet to see it happen during a raid.
This isn’t really the forum for feedback on the game content itself, and if you’re not interested in doing the troubleshooting we can’t really do much here. The behavior you’re reporting isn’t something many players are reporting issues with, however. Let us know how things go once you get some time to try all that out.
I was ONLY trying to point out the reason why it is VERY difficult to play the game the way it was suggested. Intentionally crippling my character or spending hours doing things that don’t have any payback is a bit much to ask of a customer.
that’s an issue I’ve explained a few times on forums. it’s likely something stole focus during key up. The game doesn’t sit there registering “key is still down, key is still down, key is still down” a million times
it registers 2 events. “key is down” when you press it and “key is released” when you release it. When the “stuck key” happens is when the client didn’t see the key is released event, which can happen if wow is NOT in focus when event happens (it can’t register keyboard/input events when not in focus).So things like notification popups, or something else that steals focus. This is actually a bigger issue since blizzard killed old full screen mode cause that actually suppressed that from happening. The windowed full screen does not so it’s easier for something to steal focus in this fake full screen mode.
it’s an easy issue to fix, simply press the same key (that’s stuck) again then release it and it’ll trigger “key released” event you need to stop it.
Hitting random keys to make it stop or restarting is overkill. I’ve even had this problem trigger a few dozen times over years and every time it’s same resolution, figure out which key is “stuck” and and unstuck it.
Ah, thanks Omegal, indeed I probably knew there was both a key down and a key released event… I’ll try re-pressing then releasing next time it happens (although I could swear I tired that at least once).
Hmmm, I’ll have to watch for that… it’s really tough to pin much down when it happens so infrequently, but it did 2 nights ago… we were on Restless Cabal, I was due to range tank Speaker, I backed up to not aggro him early, the character kept moving… fortunately, I ran into a rock that halted me from going in the water to an untimely end… and a easy touch on S stopped it right away.
A good way to avoid issue is probably to for one make sure you don’t mouse over dock. Also, disable notifications you don’t need or even just go into do not disturb mode in notification center. And basically anything else you can think of that could steal window focus, even for a split second.
Think I may have just seen this, in Arathi, hit space bar, head up, call map up, keeps going up. Press space bar, stops. The key down SHOULD have happened long before the key up for the map… guess it must be lag, impossible to say where THAT fault lies! At least ya gave me a handle on the issue, thanks!
That might also be triggered by some keyboards only supporting a max of 2 or 3 key downs at same time. I’m not sure of this though. Modifier keys like shift, command, control are usually exempt from key limits.
You’d be surprised. Unless the keyboard is a modern one that specifically states “N-key rollover for all keys”, those modifier keys are often not covered by rollover protection. It gets murkier when you have mice that have buttons that are counted as keys like the Naga mice are, as that can also interfere with N-key rollover too as those keys are taken when depressed on the mouse, and as such the keyboard’s press is ignored at least partially depending on the state of the mouse button (key).
this happens with me all the time, I’ve been just pressing the key that is “stuck” to get it to stop but sometimes it can happen in a bad place and boom dead
I tried your steps above but it didn’t seem to help. Been going on a while now so I wish it would have worked.
I have been watching for this specifically, not at all the case. It’s a single keypress, nothing else happening. No other “events” happening. 99% of the time, it’s the space bar for going up… yes a quick tap on it stops it. NEVER before have I seen this, been going on for 6ish months or so.
This problem been around lot longer than 6 months, try years. I remember it as far back as burning crusade. it’s just a fact of coding style and key up and key down design of game. Best way to avoid it now that dedicated full screen is gone (which blocked focus stealing) is to eliminate as much focus stealing as possible. turn on do not disturb mode, try to avoid other applications that would steal focus. try to avoid clicking out of the wow window while any key presses are dow, etc. basically, make sure wow window is always in front on “key up” and problem avoided.
To prevent the Dock from stealing focus, you’re going to need to kill literally every other running app that could possibly show a badge notification there. Otherwise, it’s going to steal focus when an app increments its badge counter. Thank Apple for forcing the dock to never be able to be killed (it auto-relaunches as it is considered a critical launch agent).
![:roll_eyes:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/roll_eyes.png?v=6" ":roll_eyes:")
