Arrow keys skip to end of documents and lists

Question

Recently my arrow keys have gone and messed themselves up.

If I'm typing a document and hit the left arrow key, instead of going back a single character, it now goes back to the beginning of the line. Earlier I was hitting loads of CTRL+(letter) shortcuts trying to find a specific function, and before that I'm pretty sure it was fine, so I might have pressed a bad shortcut.

Does anyone know how to solve this, or the shortcut that activated this in the first place?

Note: Most of the shortcuts I was hitting were with letters along the top line of the keyboard.

Solution 1

It sounds like you have a laptop and have got a function key stuck.

_{Keycaps from my Dell 7447}

As you'll see, the FN key combined with arrow keys, at least on my laptop, act as Home, Page up, Page down and End. F11 and F12 control brightness.

Try using the arrow keys with FN held down, and see if their behaviour changes. If so, you may have a Function Lock key, which, on my example, would be FN + Esc (The little padlock with FN in the middle), or Esc alone with FN Lock already on. Without knowing your model it's hard to say for sure, but it is likely labelled on one of the keys, probably in the F1-F12 keys at the top.

Solution 2

You have one of your CTRL keys stuck.

Try to pull them up with your finger nails.

If you are using windows see if StickyKeys isn't activated. Try in Control Panel.

Comments

[oisinvg]

it's not that, because the arrow key skips full lines at a time, not individual words. neither are stuck either.

[oisinvg]

also, now F11 makes the screen brighter for some reason.

[Paulo Gonçalves]

In you question you said "to the beginning of the line", not word. Check the Fn key.

[oisinvg]

Yes I know, this tells me the control key is not stuck. It is some other strange shortcut.

[Cand3r]

With F11 adjusting brightness, this is mostly likely the answer, if F11 is not taking you to full screen, your Fn key is stuck.

[oisinvg]

Thanks so much, turns out FN+Esc fixed it. F11 now does full screening, and the arrow keys are back to normal. Thanks again.

[Cand3r]

side note, had some Dell's where Fn lock was set on boot. Real hard to get into BIOS...

[Ravindra Bawane]

That's a band-aid, a work around, not a solution.