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TheRafter
New Participant
March 21, 2019
Answered

Spacebar and occasionally arrows not working with Flash

  • March 21, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 11930 views

I have the strangest issue. I've noticed that on online games, my spacebar doesn't work and sometimes my arrows stop working. This mainly only happens with flash player games (I really began to notice it on club penguin rewritten). They work perfectly everywhere else (Minecraft, word, in the web browser, etc). Even in the games, it'll say "press spacebar to restart" and that will work, but then using spacebar to jump won't. It seems so specific. I have seen quite a few people with this issue. Again, this isn't a problem with one game as it happens to many of them (club penguin, mini clips, etc).

What I have tried:

Yes - I made sure the window was selected

I completely factory reset my computer

Sticky keys is not on

I have also tried Mozilla FireFox with no luck

I have a 2017 MacBook Pro 13" with Touch Bar.

I use safari Version 12.0.3 (14606.4.5)

I don't know what the latest version of flash is, but I reinstalled it today (03/21/2019) to the latest version for mac

I have seen many people with this issue but no answer, and it is quite frustrating.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer jeromiec83223024

The easiest workaround is going to be to find a browser that works.  It's probably not our bug, just an artifact that the world has changed to support a broader set of languages and characters, and the content hasn't kept up.

When I get a little time, I'll get a bug filed and ask someone to look at it under a C++ debugger and definitively confirm why it's failing, but I have a good educated guess based on similar changes in other browsers.

2 replies

jeromiec83223024
Community Manager
jeromiec83223024Community ManagerCorrect answer
Community Manager
March 22, 2019

The easiest workaround is going to be to find a browser that works.  It's probably not our bug, just an artifact that the world has changed to support a broader set of languages and characters, and the content hasn't kept up.

When I get a little time, I'll get a bug filed and ask someone to look at it under a C++ debugger and definitively confirm why it's failing, but I have a good educated guess based on similar changes in other browsers.

T
TheRafterAuthor
New Participant
March 22, 2019

Its weird because firefox didn't work, but Chrome does, so I guess I'll be switching to that browser. Neither safari or firefox worked.. but oh well. Thanks for the help!

jeromiec83223024
Community Manager
jeromiec83223024Community Manager
Community Manager
March 21, 2019

Yeah, I've seen a couple people complain about this now.  My guess is that the games are detecting those keys by keycode values that no longer hold true on modern machines.

Links to games that reproduce this (and instructions, if they're not super obvious) would be really helpful in tracking this down, and/or telling the appropriate vendor how much stuff is impacted.

T
TheRafterAuthor
New Participant
March 22, 2019

Is there any way to solve this solution? I don't really know much about the science behind all this, but would remapping my keys do anything?

Games as examples:

Club penguin https://play.cprewritten.net​ (cart racing, puffle launch mini games)

fancy pants https://www.miniclip.com/games/fancy-pants-adventure-1/en/​

There are definitely more, but I can't think of them at the moment. If I remember some, I'll send them your way if need be.

T
TheRafterAuthor
New Participant
March 22, 2019

also, in the fancy pants one, you are supposed to use s to jump. That doesn't work either. In club penguin though which is flash, I can type with spaces just fine. Its just in some instances where it doesn't let me use those keys.

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