iOS Physical keyboard inserting UIKeyInputDownArrow, UIKEYINPUTUPARROW, UIKeyInputUpArrow randomly

Chris_Kunicki · August 20, 2018, 1:49am

Steps to reproduce

I am using an iPad Pro with a Smart keyboard. Sometimes, but frequently, but not all the time, as I use the up and down arrow keys the following words of text are inserted (just one word, but I list off what I have seen):

UIKeyInputDownArrow
UIKEYINPUTUPARROW,
UIKeyInputUpArrow

Expected result

These look like debugging statements that should not appear in the UI when using the up and down arrow keys.

Again, its totally random, I can’t find a pattern.

Environment

iOS - newest version
iPad pro 10.5
Apple smart keyboard

@Erica I want to ping this issue one more since there hasn’t been a response. I am using Dynalist in a training environment for making notes and this is not a good bug when using physical keyboard in on a mobile device

Chris_Kunicki · September 3, 2018, 4:29pm

@Erica I just wanted to raise attention again to this bug. I am doing extensive note taking all day on my iPad and this bug is very noticable in the random arrow movement information it can leave in my notes. I wish I could determine what is causing it, but I havent found a reason yet.

Thanks!

Rich_Pitts · November 1, 2018, 6:14pm

2018-11-01 IoS with Bluetooth keyboard I reproduced I suspect my impatient use of down arrow

I have screen shot but does not want to post can I email

Thao · November 9, 2018, 8:16am

Yes, can you please send in a ticket with the screen shot attached? @Rich_Pitts

Shida · November 9, 2018, 10:41pm

I can actually reproduce this on our end. Will be looking to get it fixed.

JohnLi · March 15, 2019, 4:05pm

Hi team, just reporting that I’m also seeing this. After about 10 presses of up on a physical keyboard I get the cryptic “UIKeyInputUpArrow”. Just thought I’d let you know!

Erica · November 6, 2019, 3:11am

Sorry, @JohnLi, for the super late reply.

Shida looked into this bug a year ago, and although he can repro it, he couldn’t find a fix for it. There’s no information on the internet about this bug either. Sorry about that!

EDIT: Actually, we just found out that we might be able to fix this in iOS 13. We’ll look into that!

Shida · November 10, 2019, 6:26am

Should be fixed on the latest version (1.3.7). You’ll need to use iOS 13 or later for up/down on external keyboards to work though.

The reason is that iOS had a bug related to up/down key that was fixed in iOS 13, and we used to rely on a very ugly hack that intercepts the natively overriden up/down keys.

Now that iOS 13 fixes the bug, we’ve removed the hack. It does mean that for iOS 12 or earlier, up/down keys will no longer work, but I’m so glad it’s removed because it relies on a very sketchy method that’s not officially recommended.