What is preventing ctrl-alt-m from reaching IntelliJ on Windows 10?

Question

I'm using IntelliJ in Windows and Ctrl-Alt-M is a shortcut that is very useful but right now it's doing nothing. The shortcuts just don't reach IntelliJ. My suspicion is that some other app registered it as a global shortcut or something like that.

In IntelliJ, it seems correctly set:

and if I add another shortcut to "Method...", such as ctrl-alt-shift-r, I can properly use it in the editor in IntelliJ.

I'm running the latest Windows 10 and the latest IntelliJ.

Any ideas how I can find that out?

I followed the process described here:

How can I determine which process owns a hotkey in Windows?

using Visual Studio tool Spy++ and apparently the M-key-down event is never triggering.

This is what happens for ctrl-alt-t:

a shortcut that works as expected in IntelliJ. And this is what happens with ctrl-alt-m:

I have two keyboards connected to this computer: a Kinesis Advantage and a Logitech K120. They both behave the same way in regards to ctrl-alt-m.

Solution 1

I had the same problem. Turns out NVidia's shadow play catches this shortcut by default as stated here. Apparently all the JetBrains products react the same way. So this will fix the same experience in Android Studio, Rider, CLion, and so on ...

Just follow the steps below.

1. Open GeForce Experience settings

   

2. Open in-game overlay settings

3. Open shortcut settings

   

4. Replace the microphone mute shortcut

   

5. Enjoy!

Solution 2

I have access to IntelliJ IDEA 10.5.4, so I tested the shortcut on a JavaScript file, and it worked perfectly well when a viable piece of code is selected. The problem seems local to your computer, although you are surely using another version than my old one.

What I can suggest :

• The Microsoft article Windows keyboard shortcuts for accessibility shows that this shortcut is used by the Magnifier. You may disable the Magnifier, if it is enabled.

• Check that the shortcut is well defined in your IntelliJ version. In mine this is located under menu File / Settings / Keymap, and I used the keyboard filter to isolate it :

• Check further by adding another keyboard shortcut to this item and seeing if the new one works.

• Check even further by Booting Windows in Safe Mode. If the problem disappears then this shortcut is indeed blocked by some third-party product. You could use autoruns to turn startup products off in bunches and booting, until the product is found, finally turning them back on.

• If you cannot absolutely find why this is happening, I suggest a solution using AutoHotkey, involving the mapping in IntelliJ IDEA of Ctrl-Alt-M to another shortcut, then using AutoHotkey to map Ctrl-Alt-M to the new shortcut.

Solution 3

The following similar question may help: How can I determine which process owns a hotkey in Windows? There is an answer for Windows 10 in there.

Additionally, in this question, the user finds that Ctrl+M was being intercepted by the Bing toolbar. Not sure if Ctrl+M works for you, but it's something to investigate.

Comments

[Kurru]

Thanks @harrymc. Addressing some of your points: I'm not using the magnifier glass. I checked the config and there doesn't seem to be a way to disable shortcuts, only to turn off magnifying glass, which it is. I updated the question regarding IntelliJ's config.

[harrymc]

Magnifier is probably not involved, but see this article.

[harrymc]

And what happens when booting in Safe Mode?

[Kurru]

in safe mode IntelliJ doesn't start, so, I couldn't test it.

[Kurru]

By process monitor, do you mean sysmon?

[harrymc]

Weird. Maybe you could try Safe Mode with Network.

[jsotola]

i did not say sysmon

[Joffrey]

Solved the problem for me. You're a lifesaver!

[Daniel B.]

Thanks. Same issue with visual studio for the unity documentation shortcut. Now if I could figure out how to just unbind instead of replace it ... update: it's backspace

[TeddybearCrisis]

@DanielB. I didn't quite unterstand it. You experience a similar issue in unity engine where a shortcut is captured by visual studio?

[CoolMind]

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon. Thanks but I still haven't found a needed process.

[TeddybearCrisis]

same goes for the shortcut ALT+F7 for "find code usage". As seen in the last screenshot above it is caught by Pause/resume broadcasting. So basically I removed all NVIDIA shortcuts.

[CoolMind]

If Magnifier was involved, we also couldn't use Ctrl + Alt + L, etc.

[CoolMind]

In my case I have no NVidia. You can select a text in IDE and check other hotkeys like Alt + F1, Alt + F8. If they work, NVidia doesn't capture hotkeys.

[CoolMind]

In Firefox Ctrl + M minimizes current window. If it works there, then Bing toolbar has nothing to do with it.

[bvdb]

This is just ransomeware, isn't it ? They sneek in and remap your keyboard. They change the way your battery behaves. What a bunch of idiots.