VS Code does not receive "P" when pressing Ctrl+Shift+P on Windows 10

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The keyboard shortcut for the command pallet (Ctrl+Shift+P) has stopped working in VS Code. When I go to File -> Preferences -> Keyboad Shortcuts I can confirm that only the default keybindings are present for the Ctrl+Shift+P key combination.

However, when I click Record Keys and type Ctrl+Shift+P then only "Ctrl+Shift" shows in the keybindings search box. So it seems that VS Code is never receiving the P when Ctrl+Shift is held down, but it does receive the P for other combinations (for example, Ctrl+P).

Clearly something is preventing VS Code from receiving the full key combination. How do I identify it?

vscode-settings visual-studio-code
1 Answers

Given the additional information (in a comment) that Firefox also cannot see Ctrl+Shift+P, it seems clear that the problem does not lie with VSCode itself.

That leaves three main possibilities:

  1. There is a bug in the operating system or keyboard driver.
  2. Some other software is intercepting Ctrl+Shift+P.
  3. The keyboard hardware is malfunctioning.

To tell which, first reset the keyboard software stack. That can be done in various ways, in order of increasing intrusiveness and completeness:

  • Press and release each of the keys in question.
  • Press and release all of the adjacent keys.
  • Unplug and re-plug the keyboard (if not a laptop).
  • Plug in another keyboard.
  • Warm reboot of the OS.
  • Completely power off and then power on the computer.

If one of the above steps does resolve the problem, then that's good in the short term, but the problem may recur. Options in that case include upgrading the keyboard drivers, switching keyboards, and upgrading or switching operating systems.

If the problem persists even with a different keyboard, then I would suspect hypothesis #2 is correct. It's hard to provide specific advice on how to further diagnose that without knowing more about your setup, but the basic approach I would take is to stop running programs one by one, checking each time if the key sequence now works.

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