slate 21 using onscreen keyboard when physical keyboard is plugged in

[jayyadvice]

So I have a slate 21 and it used to be working fine until today in the middle of use it randomly started using the onscreen keyboard.<br><br>Ive checked the settings and there is no hardware settings.<br><br>Also when i use the shortcuts on the keyboards like the home button or the magnifying glass they work...its jusy when typing it doesnt :/<br><br>Help?

[Great-Deku-Tree]

Hey @jayyadvice ,

Welcome to the HP Forums!

I understand you're having issues with the keyboard on your Slate 21 PC.

Please try the following.

Clear all cache: Settings > Storage > Cached Data. You should have the option to erase all the cached data here.

Hard reset: While the Slate 21 is on, press and hold the power button for 8+ seconds to force shut down. Turn it back on and see if that helps.

Factory reset: Make sure you backup any important files or information first. Settings > Backup & reset > Factory data reset.

Thanks! 🙂

[Bron47]

Hey, I am also having the very same problem. It also just started happening for no known reason.  Don't want to do the factory reset if I don't have to - but nothing else I've tried so far has worked.  Looks like some recent update messed things up.  I'm using an HP Slate 21 Pro which has always worked fine until this popped up.

[jayyadvice]

Can say that factory reset didnt solve anything. If anything it made it worse because now i have to do the initial setup ...without the aid of a keyboard zzz

[Bron47]

Yeah, that's what I feared and I knew it would be a pain. They always tell you to do that and it rarely fixes anything. <sigh>

It's a strange issue. As you pointed out, the keyboard is functioning, most of the function keys work. But none of the Alphanumeric keeps seem to work for input into any text field in any program I've tried.  I can use the Android on-screen keyboard for input (clunky, of course). I'm wondering if it is an Android OS input related issue or something.  Should I find out anything I will be sure to come back here and post. Was glad to see that someone else had encountered the same thing. Likely means not a hardware issue which is good. So thanks for your original post!

[Bron47]

Anyone from HP Support care to give us a hand with this?

[Bron47]

Hey JayAdvice!

I got my keyboard working again (for now,  anyway).  Pretty sure some recent updates screwed it up. I uninstalled the recent Google Keyboard updates and the "More Keyboards" updates. However, it appears they somehow messed up the ability of the HP (Lite-on) physical keyboard to be the default input device. I turned off the physical keyboard, screwed around trying to disable the google keyboard, powerewed off and on a few times, and then noticed I could input text when the on-screen keyboard popped up. So I went back and reenabled the physical keyboard and though I still cannot set it as the default, it works now. I can input text again.  (This happened when I went into the Chrome browser to test but not sure if that was a trigger or not.)

As you know the physical keybaord worked always in that all the special function keys kept working. But I think the table for the keycodes for the alphanumeric keys got clobbered or messed up. I'm no Android expert so not sure how that works behind the scenes, but anyway -- the good news is that you can get it working again. Not sure exactly which steps did the trick as it started working, then stopped, and then I got it going again (trial and error technique) and decided to quit while I was ahead.

Since we're not getting much help here from HP -- I wanted to let you know it is fixable.  Fingers crossed it will keep working.  I think if there was some way to reinit the original HP Keyboard conifg it would fix it, bt I could not figure out any way to do that. HP LIteon (under Input setup) does not have a check box and I did not want to take a chance by uninstalling the HP Android Keyboard (was not sure I would be able to reinstall and did not want to end up with no keyboard at all).  (Oh, I did notice the font seems changed if that's any clue. Might be bad memeory on my part, but thought it looked different.)

Anyway, good luck and if I learn any more, I will come back and post.

[Bron47]

Update: Problem comes back everytime I turn off my HP Slate 21 Pro.  But I did figure out the trick on how to fix it. But have to do it every time I restart.

[BeeJay61]

I cannot get my keyboard to work.  The top row responds but nothing else.  I tried to turn off, remove keybaord and plug in aftr the screen is on .  No cigar.  I am trying factory reset.  i hope this helps because it is a lot of trouble.  Are there any work arounds like an onscreen keyboard I can access??

[BeeJay61]

Hello HP support. Are you out there listening to this issue. KEYBOARD DOES NOT WORK.