Spells Linked in Chat Instead of Cast

[Ariellia]

<p>I play a healer, and tonight my group wiped on a boss fight because I once again got a weird bug I get every now and then, where when clicking on spells, the names of the spells were linked in chat instead of being cast. No matter what I would do to solve this problem, it didn't seem to work.</p><p>When I explained this to my groupmates in voice chat, another healer in my group mentioned "Oh! That happens to me too sometimes! It is so annoying! The only way I've been able to fix it is sending a random tell to somebody." The tank in my group also mentioned sometimes this happens to him, and has affected him in raids before as well. I tried fixing it using the "send a random tell" method, but that didn't seem to work, since it seemed I was stuck in some weird CAPS LOCK mode and trying to hit the '/' key always become a question mark. I was finally able to correct it by switching to Windowed Mode (from full screen).</p><p>After hearing two other accounts of this happening just within a 6-person group, I started to wonder if this is a very common problem.</p><p>Does this happen to many other people, and is there a fix for it? Could any of the techs let us know if this is a known bug in the game?</p><p>It is very frustrating to lose a battle because your controls seemingly "bug out."</p>

[Roslyn]

<p>This happens to me constantly, and generally at the worst possible time. I play in windowed mode so I always just assumed it was because of that. Hitting alt-enter fixes it for me, by going full screen, then I just alt-enter again to go back to windowed. Sometimes minimizing/maximizing also fixes it. It's as annoying as my cursor getting stuck over the window buttons (min/max/exit) which seems like a more recent bug.</p>

[kdmorse]

<p><cite>Aeyri@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I tried fixing it using the "send a random tell" method, but that didn't seem to work, since it seemed I was stuck in some weird CAPS LOCK mode and trying to hit the '/' key always become a question mark. I was finally able to correct it by switching to Windowed Mode (from full screen).</blockquote><p>Setting the game aside for the moment - that effect (the keyboard acting as if shift is being held down when it's really not) is usually caused by one of the shift keys becoming logically (not physically) stuck.  Basically, somewhere along the line, the "I pressed shift" message got through, but the "I released shift" message got lost.  There's no time limit on this, windows will just act as if you're holding down shift eternally.</p><p>That tracks with both your pressing /, and getting a ?, and your links appearing, as shift-click on an ability generates a link in chat instead of casting it.  (Sure, it doesn't always do it when you want it to, but when you don't.... I'll do it every time).</p><p>The best and easiest way to clear this is to give each shift key a quick tap.  You have no way of knowing which one is logically stuck (they're different keycodes), and tapping each one sends a "key pressed -- key depressed" sequence that clears that particular "key down" flag.  (Switching between keyboard and fullscreen clears the keyboard state as well - although you can become restuck when you switch back).</p><p>But at least tapping each shift key is faster than switching in and out of windowed mode in a combat situation.</p><p>All that said, I see it all the time in *other* applications, even a cmd prompt - but I've never personally seen it happen in the game.  Just throwing an idea and possible workaround your way, hopefully it helps.</p><p>-Ken</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>Keys can typically become stuck exactly as explained above.  This becomes more common when running applications that take focus away from the game in the background or when alt-tabbing, or in graphically intensive situations where your computer is bogged down and 'lagging'.</p><p>The reasons are just as they are described above.  Your computer was able to process the shift key being pressed, but not being released.  Pushing the shift key again typically clears this up but other contributing factors may prevent it from doing so.  This could be the lag continuing, for instance.</p><p>Updating DirectX can improve the situation but it can't prevent every possible situation where this would occur.  I did include that link below.  The best advice I can give is that if you notice you are getting in to situations where your computer is bogged down, unresponsive (or slow to respond), or receiving things like mouse pointer lag and so on, would be to find the balance in your graphical settings to prevent as much as possible any contributing factors such as FPS lag/system lag.  This is when you will run in to a stuck key situation the most often.</p><p><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=3b170b25-abab-4bc3-ae91-50ceb6d8fa8d" target="_blank">[DX9] June 2010</a></p>

[Ariellia]

<p>Hi Ken & TSR Joshua,</p><p>Thanks for the advice. I will try tapping the "Shift" keys if I run into this again, although in an intense fight even a brief pause in healing can mean the difference between life and death <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p><p>The thought had occured that this could be more of a computer/Windows issue than EQ2 (which you seem to corraborate), but since this problem seems to ONLY happen to me in EQ2, I hadn't wanted to rule out the possibility it could be the game as well.</p><p>Lag could likely be a contributing factor, although I don't seem to notice any other type of lag (graphical, etc.) when it occurs. However, I do tend to get only ~17-26FPS when playing (2.6 GHz Athlon 64 x2, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 275 896MB, SSD). Solo and in groups I tend to run on Balanced (I am willing to take the lower frame rates to be able to look at higher quality graphics), although in raids I generally run on Very High Performance. I'm hoping this doesn't mean I need to look at lowering my graphic quality further <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I generally run the game in full screen mode, and other than Ventrilo (used only during raids), I don't usually run other apps in the background. Sometimes I do Alt+Tab to check the Internet in Firefox during downtimes (since the in-game browser can be glitchy and doesn't have full support for certain sites like GMail), but always close it before switching back to game. I will try to reduce doing this to see if it helps.</p><p>I will also check my DirectX tonight to see if it needs to be upgraded. I've already checked my keyboard settings to verify that annoyances such as "Sticky Keys" are disabled. Upon further thought, I also don't seem to recall this problem before I got Windows 7.</p><p>Perhaps some of the future engine optimizations that Smokejumper has hinted at will also help issues such as this. Either that, or maybe I should just get a new computer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>I do hope the upcoming optimizations are epic in proportion <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I've had it happen to me too when the lag could be considered within reasonable levels but the timing was just bad.  I hit the shift key at that momentary stutter and that was that.   Hopefully just tapping the key will help you get around it quickly but I do understand what you mean when it comes to pausing while healing.  I've had the long discussions with my main healer (who also doubles as my roommate!) with why he just let me die and had it all explained <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I can't say that the game isn't at fault or we wouldn't need future optimizations and so on, but it just a contributing factor among many that we can all do our part in preventing as much as possible but there will always be that rare occurrance that just happens with this kind of issue.</p>