Keyboard doesn't work?

Radiant · Thu 26/06/2014 12:41:10

One player of Heroine's Quest reports that for him, the keyboard doesn't work; within the game, the keyboard is completely unresponsive, although mouse controls work normally. Since nobody else so far has reported this issue, this appears to be something in that user's computer setup.

That said, has anyone encountered something like this before? Any ideas as to what might cause it or how to fix it?

Khris · Fri 27/06/2014 07:49:51

I actually have encountered this before; it was when I was at a friend's and had connected an external USB keyboard to my laptop. For some reason AGS struck out handling the keypresses; using the laptop's own keyboard worked just fine.

TheBitPriest · Mon 21/07/2014 15:51:21

This may or may not be related, but I have been chasing a keyboard problem down the rabbit hole all morning.

Without any (known) configuration changes to my machine, my keyboard stopped working under certain circumstances within the engine. I say certain circumstances, because WaitMouseKey() is still working (does this make sense to any of you who have examined the input code in the engine??).

I'm still working backing out *every* MS update from the past week or so... I'm also looking into trojans, etc. It's a tedious process given all of the rebooting.

I noticed the problem when I couldn't hit ESC to skip cutscenes. I didn't pay attention to it at first. KB input is not very central to my project, and I had recently made a change that could have resulted in an input related bug. Besides, WaitMouseKey() was working on ESC. But then I noticed that the Save screen was not working. I tested old projects, and the loaded a few other AGS games, and sure enough -- KB input is broken.

Anyone else having problems?

TheBitPriest · Mon 21/07/2014 16:36:30

Grr... It looks like it was a Microsoft update. I uninstalled every update that was published 7-8-14, and now the games are working again. The next step is to go back one-by-one and see which one it was. That will be fun.

No one else had this problem?

Radiant · Mon 21/07/2014 16:37:17

The ESC issue is known: if the last key you pressed was control (or control+anything else), then the escape key won't register until you press another key first. This is a bug in Allegro and it could be resolved by migrating to a newer version of Allegro, but that is a time consuming process since the AGS code relies on certain older functionality.

Crimson Wizard · Mon 21/07/2014 16:39:33

[OFF-TOPIC]

Quote from: Radiant on Mon 21/07/2014 16:37:17This is a bug in Allegro and it could be resolved by migrating to a newer version of Allegro, but that is a time consuming process since the AGS code relies on certain older functionality.

Umm, not precisely, it was supposedly fixed in a community update to Allegro 4 (v 4.4 AFAIK); this problem is rather organizational: we need to decide how to keep allegro libs updated.

[/OFF-TOPIC]

TheBitPriest · Mon 21/07/2014 17:11:32

This issue is different. It's not an issue of order. All the buttons stop working, except, mysteriously, ESC as read by WaitMouseKey() (unless that's the "bug" you mean, Radiant).

I am 100% certain now that there's an MS update that causes this problem. I just reloaded all of the most important security updates from 7-8-14, and the problem came back. Now I'm down to working through them one at a time. It'll be a fun few hours of waiting and rebooting. Joy. (unless I get lucky) $:-\$

TheBitPriest · Mon 21/07/2014 19:04:21

Okay. I've narrowed the problem down to KB2973201.

Quote"This security update resolves a vulnerability in Windows that could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker uses a vulnerability in a low-integrity process to execute the on-screen keyboard (OSK) and upload a specially crafted program to the target system."

A quick search reveals that this update has broken several games.

I guess we'll have to keep an eye on this...

No one else has had this problem?

Crimson Wizard · Mon 21/07/2014 19:05:57

Interesting...
http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2a9z7m/how_do_i_tell_microsoft_their_patch_kb2973201/

Solution for tablets, dunno if related:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2984930

Dave Gilbert · Fri 01/04/2016 21:39:08

Hey. Apologies for necroposting. Was a solution for this ever discovered? I've been getting some complaints about this problem for some of my older games. Is there an easy way for them to address the issue without me having to compile new versions of the game in the latest engine?