Hello everyone,
I've been using DreymaR's Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks with EPKL on Windows and have encountered an issue where, at random, all mappings turn off, and my keyboard reverts to the QWERTY layout. Refreshing EPKL temporarily fixes the issue, but after some time, it switches back to QWERTY again.
I'm using Colemak[eD] with CurlAngle mode. Does anyone know what might be causing this problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
Hiya! In general, if you're having an issue this isn't the place to discuss that. This is the Forum for the Colemak layout, not a tech support forum for EPKL. Not far off, but still not quite. The correct way to report an issue with EPKL would be to report it on the EPKL repo, as a GitHub issue.
But never mind that, now we're here. I sometimes experience modifiers getting stuck in an on or off state, and then I use my refresh EPKL hotkey sequence (Ext-tap then 5) and everything's fine again. After switching the underlying OS layout (if you, like me, have several of them) you may also need to refresh EPKL to get all VK mappings right.
But I haven't seen a problem like yours, myself. I sincerely doubt it is actually random: There's usually an underlying cause for such things. If you really have no idea what might cause this, and I can't reproduce the problem, we may be stuck for now?
You aren't running any other scripts or programs that may hook the keyboard? Because as explained in the EPKL readme, hook competition may get ugly.
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Thanks for your response! I appreciate the clarification about where to report issues.
Regarding your question, I don’t have any other scripts or programs that could be hooking the keyboard, so there shouldn’t be any conflicts from that side. I also haven’t noticed any specific pattern when EPKL disables - it just seems to happen after approximately 2-3 minutes each time.
I appreciate the help! Let me know if you have any other suggestions.
Sorry, can't think of anything right now. Hmmm...
EPKL doesn't get suspended (layout icon crossed-out in red), the mappings just don't work, that so?
And you're sure the underlying OS layout doesn't get switched.
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Yes, EPKL remains active (not suspended), and the underlying OS layout isn't switching—yet the mappings stop working. I have also checked AHK key history, and after reverting to QWERTY, AHK doesn't seem to catch any new keypresses.
That is so odd. The only possible explanation I can think of is that you do actually have another low-level keyboard hook active on your system, somehow. Such as some of the Microsoft PowerTools use, for instance. But then you'd also experience glitches in that whenever EPKL does have the hook priority, I guess.
Maybe if you check out your active processes, you can see something. But that can be a confusing exercise.
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I actually had previously installed Microsoft PowerToys to remap my Caps Lock key to Esc, but I have since uninstalled it. Is it possible that there could still be some remnants from that installation causing issues, even after uninstalling?
That might be a clue? But I don't have a lot of experience with MS PowerToys.
At the top of the AHK Key History screen it says whether AHK(?) has an active keyboard hook. Not sure if that'd change if it loses priority.
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AHK Key History still shows that the keyboard hook is active. I have also tried mapping Colemak-DH keys using the AHK script ColemakMods/mod-dh, and it works just fine.
One of my initial thoughts was that you could have something auto-suspending EPKL, like an app or a layout ID. But you say it doesn't get suspended, so that can't be it then? Your EPKL settings have nothing for autosuspension?
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
