Keyboard Manager no longer works with my desktop switching shortcuts

[N-Carter]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.74.0

Installation method

PowerToys auto-update

Running as admin

No

Area(s) with issue?

Keyboard Manager

Steps to reproduce

I'm using Keyboard Manager to make more convenient shortcuts for switching between desktops. These are my only mappings, used with a UK keyboard:

[Win (Left)] [\] mapped to [Win (Right)] [Ctrl (Right)] [Right]
[Win (Left)] [Shift (Left)] [\] mapped to [Win (Right)] [Ctrl (Right)] [Left]

This helps me to switch desktop with only my left hand instead of having to take my right hand off the mouse or move my left hand over to the cursor keys. I switch desktop a lot, so this is important to me.

Since the most recent update, these mappings only work intermittently, and mostly don't work at all. It used to work perfectly.

PowerToysReport_2023-10-04-00-34-31.zip

✔️ Expected Behavior

The same behaviour as previous versions, in which pressing my shortcuts produces the correct shortcuts to switch desktop.

❌ Actual Behavior

Generally, nothing happens and the \ or | characters are output instead, or a beep is produced if the focussed app doesn't accept those characters. It does work occasionally. It worked for a few tries after I set it up again just now, but then it stopped working again.

Other Software

No response

[yuyoyuppe]

Hi, thanks for the report.
I've tried your mappings on ENG UK and they work w/o issues. Can you please try v0.73 to make sure it's not a regression?

/needinfo

[N-Carter]

Of course, after it has been behaving like this for a few days, I come to test it this morning and it won't consistently do it! It failed to work once just now, and then it started working again. It might be caused by some interaction with other software or even a website. I suspect Vivaldi browser plus YouTube at the moment. It might be exacerbated by a particular app being on the second desktop.

Before I revert to 0.73, I'll try some different things out to see if I can track down what triggers it. I'll get back to you if I can track it down, or once I've tried 0.73 again. Thanks!

[N-Carter]

Still testing here. Sorry about the delay in responding. I'm trying 0.73 at the moment, and I saw it do this once over a couple of days, but not regularly like 0.74. It takes quite a while to test whether something rarely happens!

It doesn't seem to be affected by anything in particular being on the second desktop. I've seen it happen with nothing on the second desktop at all.

Next step is to get back to 0.74 and see if I can track down the trigger.

[N-Carter]

I haven't had this problem again since reverting to 0.73 and then upgrading to 0.74.1, so I'll close the issue. Very strange that it was so persistent for several days and then vanished without a trace, but maybe it was a quirk caused by the 0.74 upgrade, or something going on with my system which has fixed itself. Thanks for your help!