Backspace, Home and Delete keypresses (possibly others) applied to wrong file in Visual Studio with Copilot 1.94.0.0 installed.

[JocelynSachs]

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Several times now since installing Copilot I've been typing code, pressed backspace to correct a mistake - and nothing seems to happen.

I just had it happen again now. Hammering backspace and delete seemed to do nothing, but I could still type new code.

I then clicked on another open file in VS, and found that all the backspacing and deleting I had been doing had been applied to that file instead, at the place where I had left the cursor.

[rccnw]

Here it is March 2024 and this bug is still happening. Anybody home? This is pretty hard to take. I had no idea the keys were being applied to another file till I read this bug report from 8 months ago. Using GitHub Copilot extension 1.156.0.0 in VS2022 Community

[thomasmaisel]

I had the same problem. Backspace did not work in Copilot Chat Toolwindow, as well in the Inline Chat.
I'm also a VSVim user, but I'm not sure if it's related to the extension since uninstalling the extension did not fix it.

I fixed it by:

• exporting my current keyboard bindings
• resetting the keybindings in the options menu (now, backspace works again)
• edit the exported file. delete the line:
  <RemoveShortcut Command="Edit.DeleteBackwards" Scope="Text Editor">Bkspce</RemoveShortcut>
• import the keyboard bindings again.

[ayim]

Yikes. @rccnw @JocelynSachs please reach out to me directly at [email protected] so that we can schedule a screenshare and collect logs.

--
Aaron Yim
Product Manager for GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio
github: ayim | [email protected]

[rccnw]

Sent email, thanks.

[cdrenshaw]

I have the same issue or similar issue... I have the Copilot Chat window docked in Visual Studio. The issue always occurs when I open the window, pin it, and then click Create New Thread. If I have to backspace while typing, it backspaces in whatever open document my cursor was last in which deletes some of my code from wherever the cursor was at. I have to unpin the window and close it, then reopen it and pin it again for backspace to work correctly.

[rubenseggers]

I had the same problem and and fixed it using: Tools > Import and export settings... > Reset all settings.

It gives you an option to save your current settings, and you can import a selection of those saved settings. Repeatedly resetting and loading half of the settings—always nice to find a good use case for a classic O(log N) binary search—showed the culprit was: All settings > Options > Environment > Keyboard.

So saving and resetting the settings, subsequently importing all but the "Keyboard" one, did the trick for me. I had to reconfigure some keyboard shortcuts I was using, but other than that all my previous settings are working just fine. Hope this helps!

[SJFriedl]

Hmm, this did fix the backspace issue on my laptop (thank you!), but broke a bunch of other key bindings.

This suggests there's really no way to avoid the maze of twisty passages of keyboard bindings to make things work the way I want it, and this is completely overwhelming. Not willing to risk destroying my main dev system key bindings, so will just stick with ChatGPT for AI help.

Appreciate your sharing a solution.

[SJFriedl]

Update: I realized that I could save all my settings in an XML file (which would allow me to recover in case of disaster), and ran this on my primary development desktop: it worked, and after a brief click on a VsVim setting (allow VsVim to handle all), this appears to have completely resolved this backspace issue on both of my VS2022 installs.

I'm grateful for the guidance from this thread, and hope that the feedback is helpful to the Copilot team.

[rubenseggers]

Interesting, I'm also using VsVim, but I actually do want some of those shortcuts (in the VsVim -> Keyboard menu) to be handled by VS. However, it's good to know that VsVim key bindings are part of the problem, might this or similar errors occur in the future. Thanks for your follow up and all the best.

[SJFriedl]

I'm not 100% sure that VsVim is implicated here: the backspace was eaten even when VsVim (and ReSharper) were completely disabled.

It's possible that VsVim interacts with the key bindings in a way that lingered even after being disabled, being fixed by the "Reset All Settings" move. I looked through the settings XML file of settings prior to reset, and didn't see anything obvious.