I have a computer mouse that has extra buttons. I attached the shortcuts Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab to these mouse buttons. I have also done this with gestures on my laptop's touchpad. I use these combinations a lot and they are very useful.
Every now and then when I use these buttons/gestures a lot, at some point my computer enters an abnormal state characterized by two problems:
Changing tabs with the above shortcuts ceases to work, on any browser or IDE (e.g. Visual Studio Code). Instead it behaves as if singular Tab command was detected. Important to note is that Ctrl, Shift and Tab all work fine in isolation in this state. It is only the combination of them that does not produce the results it should.
Modifier keys tend to get stuck (as in sticky keys) if Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab are pressed (when the PC is in this abnormal state). It is always either Shift or Ctrl getting stuck. This happens even when sticky keys is disabled in windows accessibility settings. I can turn the sticky keys off again by pressing the stuck key multiple times, but once my PC is in this abnormal state (identified most easily by problem 1 above) it is only a question of time before Ctrl and Shift get stuck again. When the PC is not in this abnormal state, the modifier keys never get stuck.
This issue has persisted for years, and it pops up every now and then. Looked for solutions multiple times, could not find any. The only solution that I know to get out of this abnormal state is to restart the computer. However that is annoying for obvious reasons so I'm looking for a fix that is quicker and less invasive.
What I've tried:
- going through Ctrl, Shift, Alt to see if they are stuck.
- Ctrl+Alt+Delete, as suggested by this article, but that does not work for me. Control key acts as if it is stuck periodically
- Fn lock, unlocking.
The laptop is an HP Zbook G5, Windows 11.
Any help much appreciated, very annoying problem!
