Keyboard Quits Typing - AutoCAD 2012

[RockyBrown4134]

Had a colleague working on drawing, adding mtext and dimensions, leader text. All of a sudden the keyboard will not type while in AutoCAD. They can move the cursor to another program, such as Word or Excel, and keyboard types fine. Rebooting restores it, but it has happen again, as few as a several minutes later, to several hours later. We have change out keyboards. I don't know if IT has changed USB ports.

Keyboard us a USB connection. IT thinks it is a setting or bug in AutoCAD. I disagree. I think the antivirus we gave running may have something to do with the problem, interfering with AutoCAD.

Has anyone seen this happen before? Any suggestions?

[pendean]

There is no "stop typing" setting or bug in R2012: are you shure, while typing, AutoCAD stops being the active program in Windows (aka loses focus)?

Does the keyboard require a driver from a tird party to run? Broken USB port? if you plug in the back, plug it in the front for example (ganged USB ports are all tied to one spot on a motherboard usually, so moving it to another next to the one you use is not a good way to diagnose issues).

[RockyBrown4134]

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pendean wrote:
are you sure, while typing, AutoCAD stops being the active program in Windows (aka loses focus)?

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Yes, I'm sure. When an incident happens, I can use the mouse to click "outside" of AutoCAD and in another program, such as Word or Outlook Email, Keyboard works. Click back into AutoCAD, Keyboard is dead. Closing the program and restarting the computer clears the issue up for a while.

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pendean wrote:
Does the keyboard require a driver from a third party to run?

Broken USB port? if you plug in the back, plug it in the front for example (ganged USB ports are all tied to one spot on a motherboard usually, so moving it to another next to the one you use is not a good way to diagnose issues).

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We are using the Windows universal driver according to our IT department on all of our machines.

We have switch USB ports and no effect. On one machine, we even plugged in a PS2 keyboard and still have the same results.

We are up to 4 machines (out of 38 in our current office) having the problem. I am going to check the frequency of how often it happens on each machine. I have also got IT looking into other possibilities, such as Windows KB patches to see if there is anything that could be interfering. One machine I would thought it was the keyboard. But multiple machines, I'm thinking its something else.

[RockyBrown4134]

FYI......Our IT department is also going to scan for virus's and malware.

[pendean]

That is weird indeed: I can't find a precedent that doesn't indicate it's a keyboard driver problem (Microsoft even offers a 'fixit' tool solution among others).

[RockyBrown4134]

add a wireless keyboard to the tally. Mouse still works but keyboard doesn't work at all. I changed batteries, it registers with the antenna, but does not type. I am going to get a fresh set of batteries to see if that is the case. I don't know if this is linked to the same problem, but I will not rule it out yet.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Mouse still works but keyboard doesn't work at all

Two questions to that: when you say you can use the mouse in AutoCAD ==> does that mean you can move and see the moving mouse on top of the AutoCAD application window or can you really use the mouse to start commands from ribbon and draw e.g. a line?

When you say the keyboard does not work when the AutoCAD window has the focus ==> does that mean turn on/off caps-lock and/or numlock does also not work (pressing capslock multiple times does not turn on and turn off the led for capslock?

To try: next time that issue happens pull out the USB connector and plug it in into another USB-socket.

- alfred -

[RockyBrown4134]

FYI.....In the situation of the wireless keyboard, the same characteristics are seen as with the USB wired keyboard. Responses below apply to both.

Alfred.NESWADBA wrote:

when you say you can use the mouse in AutoCAD ==> does that mean you can move and see the moving mouse on top of the AutoCAD application window

Yes. Cursor moves across drawing pane, ribbons, menu area. cursor Moves across screen to select desktop items.

or can you really use the mouse to start commands from ribbon and draw e.g. a line?

Yes.

When you say the keyboard does not work when the AutoCAD window has the focus ==> does that mean turn on/off caps-lock and/or numlock does also not work (pressing capslock multiple times does not turn on and turn off the led for capslock?

Did not try that exactly. When incident occurs, you cannot enter a command in the command prompt or type text in MTEXT editor. I did not try PROPERTIES, ATTRIBUTE EDITOR or any other command that accepts a numerical value or text string. I will add those to the list of things to try during the next incident.

To try: next time that issue happens pull out the USB connector and plug it in into another USB-socket.

We did that already. Tried Ports on both the back and front of the machine.

[pendean]

Uninstall all wireless mouse and keyboard drivers from Windows, cold start Windows with wired devices plugged in, start AutoCAD with no add-ons, and confirm you still have the problem.

[RockyBrown4134]

We will give it a try.

[tlienNKJPY]

You've maybe already solved this, but for the sake of others...

Did you verify that the mouse is positioned over the area you want to type in while using the Keyboard?

This is a known bug/feature/quirk of some versions of AutoCad which certainly took me some time to troubleshoot;

If your mouse is not over the text field while you are typing, the keyboard is disabled.  Even if you click on a field first, if the mouse moves away from the dialog box, then it loses focus and the keyboard becomes inactive.

Solution:

It takes some extra dexterity, but you need to mouse over the dialog box with one hand while you type with the other.

I have searched extensively and believe there is no fix to this behavior.

[RockyBrown4134]

To be honest, I forgot to check with the colleague after suggesting Dean's solutions. This has been a while back. If memory serves me correct, I think it ended up being an issue with the mouse.

My apology for not following up. Thanks for your input.