Factorio Forums

When using the arrow keys to walk, pressing the Alt key causes the player character to stop walking as well as toggling detailed info. Player movement is discontinued until the arrow keys are let go of and pressed again. This has been tested on multiple saves on Ubuntu 16.04. Preferably, pressing the Alt key should allow normal player movement to continue while still toggling detailed info.

Thanks for the report. When I press alt it doesn't stop my movement.

Did you re-bind movement to the arrow keys or are you still using WASD?

Are you sure your keyboard isn't the limiting factor? There's a maximum number of keys that can be pressed on most keyboards before some keys stop being registered.

Rseding91 wrote:When I press alt it doesn't stop my movement.

Doing some more testing with a set of exos, the effect varies. When I press down Alt, movement is always stopped. When I release Alt, movement will either stay halted or resume, pretty much randomly.

Rseding91 wrote:Did you re-bind movement to the arrow keys or are you still using WASD?

I apologize, I meant WASD. I am using the default keybindings.

Rseding91 wrote:Are you sure your keyboard isn't the limiting factor? There's a maximum number of keys that can be pressed on most keyboards before some keys stop being registered.

I am only pressing one movement key and the Alt key at the same time. I'm pretty sure it's not my keyboard.

Do you have any mods installed? Can you go into the options -> controls and see what movement and alt-toggle are bound to to confirm they aren't changed slightly?

Rseding91 wrote:Do you have any mods installed? Can you go into the options -> controls and see what movement and alt-toggle are bound to to confirm they aren't changed slightly?

I have several mods installed, but only base is enabled. Movement is bound to WASD and "Show info" is bound to ALT_L.

I can't confirm this bug on Lubuntu 17.04, walking isn't interrupted by pressing Alt and advanced info is toggled.

Do you have any OS/window manager function bound to Alt itself or Alt+a movement key? If I accidentally hit the Windows key while moving right, it'll trigger show desktop/revert to windows in rapid succession as long as I hold both Win and D. If I keep D pressed and release Win with Factorio maximised, movement will have stopped and won't return until I let go of D and press it again. So maybe your WM tries to do something similar.

MerkaST wrote:Do you have any OS/window manager function bound to Alt itself or Alt+a movement key?

Only Alt+Tab, which isn't relevant here. The effect occurs when pressing Alt while holding down any combination of the WASD keys.

Isn't ubuntu's hud interfering?. In my system left alt brings up the hud so I have detailed info bound to other key.

m44v wrote:Isn't ubuntu's hud interfering?. In my system left alt brings up the hud so I have detailed info bound to other key.

No, the Ubuntu HUD is bound to the Windows key on my system.

LegionMammal978 wrote:

m44v wrote:Isn't ubuntu's hud interfering?. In my system left alt brings up the hud so I have detailed info bound to other key.

No, the Ubuntu HUD is bound to the Windows key on my system.

Just to be clear, typically the Windows key in Ubuntu opens the dash board, not the hud. You aren't mixing them up?

m44v wrote:

LegionMammal978 wrote:

m44v wrote:Isn't ubuntu's hud interfering?. In my system left alt brings up the hud so I have detailed info bound to other key.

No, the Ubuntu HUD is bound to the Windows key on my system.

Just to be clear, typically the Windows key in Ubuntu opens the dash board, not the hud. You aren't mixing them up?

Perhaps I am mixing them up. Are you referring to the Alt+Tab HUD? If not, then I do not know which HUD you are talking about. Pressing Alt alone is handled by the active window in my system.

you probably don't have the shortcut enabled then, the HUD is the search bar that lets you type-search a command of an app instead of using its menus, you can't miss it when you press alt. I tried disabling that shortcut and I confirm that the player stops walking when I press it. However now I believe that is the window manager catching the keystroke because, like in most distros, alt is for clicking and dragging a window.

In any case, using the alt key is always problematic in Linux OSes, I would just rebind it to something else.

m44v wrote:However now I believe that is the window manager catching the keystroke because, like in most distros, alt is for clicking and dragging a window.

In any case, using the alt key is always problematic in Linux OSes, I would just rebind it to something else.

I haven't ever seen that use of the Alt key in my window manager, apart from the Alt+Tab combination. As I said, all programs capture the key fine, the problem appears to be with the game. I have not observed this behavior in previous versions of Factorio. (Note that the problem may still persist in earlier versions, I just haven't explicitly observed it.)

1. Are you using classic english keyboard layout?
2. Does it happen for both Alt and AltGr?

Harkonnen wrote:1. Are you using classic english keyboard layout?

Yes.

Harkonnen wrote:2. Does it happen for both Alt and AltGr?

My keyboard does not contain an AltGr key.

LegionMammal978 wrote:

m44v wrote:However now I believe that is the window manager catching the keystroke because, like in most distros, alt is for clicking and dragging a window.

In any case, using the alt key is always problematic in Linux OSes, I would just rebind it to something else.

I haven't ever seen that use of the Alt key in my window manager, apart from the Alt+Tab combination.

If you didn't disable it in your Ubuntu (normally you couldn't since that setting isn't exposed anywhere by default) you drag a window by clicking in any part of it while holding alt, is a pretty standard feature in most distros, saves you from having to hunt for the title bar like in MS Windows. The downside is that it can cause some problems with applications that are cross platform.
That could explain this behaviour in Ubuntu, in MerkaST's case, Lubuntu doesn't use Compiz as window manager.

2. Does it happen for both Alt and AltGr?

For me, It does not happen for AltGr, only with Alt (ALT_L). It makes sense, since AltGr isn't for dragging windows.

LegionMammal978 wrote:My keyboard does not contain an AltGr key.

Then I suppose it's a laptop. Sorry for stupid question - can it be something about Fn key?

m44v wrote:If you didn't disable it in your Ubuntu (normally you couldn't since that setting isn't exposed anywhere by default) you drag a window by clicking in any part of it while holding alt, is a pretty standard feature in most distros, saves you from having to hunt for the title bar like in MS Windows. The downside is that it can cause some problems with applications that are cross platform.
That could explain this behaviour in Ubuntu, in MerkaST's case, Lubuntu doesn't use Compiz as window manager.

Huh. Didn't notice it doing to it not working on maximized windows. Besides, I'm not holding down my mouse or anything when pressing Alt and moving.

Harkonnen wrote:Then I suppose it's a laptop. Sorry for stupid question - can it be something about Fn key?

I am running this on a desktop computer. My keyboard contains neither an AltGr key nor a Fn key. The same applies to my old wireless keyboard. Note that I am using an American keyboard, with an American English layout. Perhaps I misinterpreted your earlier question regarding that.

As you are the only one having this issue, I highly suspect that it is not a Factorio error. It is more likely to be system or other error specific to your computer. I'm moving this topic to 0/1 magic.