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Up Arrow Only Works with +Shift or +Fn, etc. Not By Itself

My up arrow stopped working on it's own...both on my laptop keyboard and on my bluetooth apple keyboard. If I use it as a shortcut, like Shift+Up, Fn+Up, Cmd+Up, etc., it works as normal....but by itself there's no response. Really frustrating in that I can't quickly move objects, go up a cell in a spreadsheet, scroll slightly in a browser, etc.


The other arrow keys work as normal. I checked and I don't have any keyboard shortcuts assigned to the up key. I haven't been able to find any good posts about this issue.


Any help?

MacBook Pro 15”, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 7, 2020 6:16 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 7, 2020 6:37 AM

e_mac_in wrote:

My up arrow stopped working on it's own...both on my laptop keyboard and on my bluetooth apple keyboard. If I use it as a shortcut, like Shift+Up, Fn+Up, Cmd+Up, etc., it works as normal....but by itself there's no response. Really frustrating in that I can't quickly move objects, go up a cell in a spreadsheet, scroll slightly in a browser, etc.

The other arrow keys work as normal. I checked and I don't have any keyboard shortcuts assigned to the up key. I haven't been able to find any good posts about this issue.

Any help?


Verify your user preferences and make changes

>System Preferences>Keyboard>shortcuts


Restore defaults


Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support



If no resolve— To trouble shoot further you can:


—Try a SafeBoot https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Takes noticeable longer to get to the login screen, does a 5-15 minute disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache, etc. Login and test. Reboot and test as caches get rebuilt.


In Safe mode third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled, it removes malware, etc hampering smooth operation, however a reboot will put it back to normal mode.


This test will tell you if third party interference; extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.



—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 



3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 7, 2020 6:37 AM in response to e_mac_in

e_mac_in wrote:

My up arrow stopped working on it's own...both on my laptop keyboard and on my bluetooth apple keyboard. If I use it as a shortcut, like Shift+Up, Fn+Up, Cmd+Up, etc., it works as normal....but by itself there's no response. Really frustrating in that I can't quickly move objects, go up a cell in a spreadsheet, scroll slightly in a browser, etc.

The other arrow keys work as normal. I checked and I don't have any keyboard shortcuts assigned to the up key. I haven't been able to find any good posts about this issue.

Any help?


Verify your user preferences and make changes

>System Preferences>Keyboard>shortcuts


Restore defaults


Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support



If no resolve— To trouble shoot further you can:


—Try a SafeBoot https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Takes noticeable longer to get to the login screen, does a 5-15 minute disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache, etc. Login and test. Reboot and test as caches get rebuilt.


In Safe mode third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled, it removes malware, etc hampering smooth operation, however a reboot will put it back to normal mode.


This test will tell you if third party interference; extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.



—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 



May 9, 2020 10:01 AM in response to e_mac_in

e_mac_in wrote:

Thanks - no keyboard shortcuts in preferences, but starting in SafeBoot eliminated the issue. I was able to track the issue down to a specific application that actually had its own hotkey turned on for the up arrow. Problem solved.

Thanks for your help @leroydouglas


Good computing e_mac_in ! thanks for the update.

Up Arrow Only Works with +Shift or +Fn, etc. Not By Itself

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