Shift+Space and Ctrl+Space shortcuts intermittently working

[yumyumdimsum]

Strangely, my excel wasn't responding when using the Left Shift+Spacebar or Left Ctrl+Spacebar shortcuts for selecting an entire row/column. But, then I tried the RightShift+Spacebar and it worked. From then on, the shortcut worked even when using LeftShift+Spacebar.

Unfortunately, no matter if I'm using left or right Ctrl+Spacebar, the shortcut does not work. In fact, once I try to use Ctrl+Spacebar, the Shift+Spacebar shortcut suddenly stops working until I mess around with it a few more times.

I should note that other ctrl shortcuts like ctrl+9 and ctrl+0 work perfectly.

Am I taking crazy pills??

[dilipandey]

Hi yumyumdimsum,

May be try using another keyboard to make sure if that is a hardware problem or some settings got changed

Regards,
DILIPandey

<click on below 'star' if this helps>

[yumyumdimsum]

Hi dilipandey. I was previously using my laptop's (Lenovo Thinkpad) keyboard and have now switched to a standalone HP keyboard. I'm still experiencing the same problem, so I know it's not a hardware problem. Other shortcuts, even simple ones like ctrl+v for copy paste are working just fine.

[dilipandey]

strange.. and interesting

I am making myself an interested party here and would love to see if any pointers come up by other members ..

Regards,
DILIPandey

<click on below 'star' if this helps>

[:) Sixthsense :)]

I believe you might have associated those keys for any other applications as shortcut key. So the associated shortcut keys won't respond when that Application is running. If the application is completely closed (Sometimes closing X mark will just minimize the application window to system tray and still it will run in background-Based on the application settings) then the keys will do the task which is associated with excel.

[yumyumdimsum]

Another interesting addition: Holding Shift and Ctrrl together and then pressing Spacebar will correctly select the whole sheet for me, but just doing ctrl+spacebar alone still does nothing.

[yumyumdimsum]

I figured out the cause of this problem: I was using a multi language input keyboard and the typical shortcut for switching between input languages is Ctrl+Space. So all I had to do was change this shortcut and the excel shortcut began working properly.

[dilipandey]

wow..
after reading this, the unknown weight disappeared from my mind as I was occasionally thinking about this from past 2 days

Regards,
DILIPandey
<click on below * if this helps>

[slyakh]

Unfortunately for me, Ctrl+Space is not used for language switching, or any macros, or any other shortcuts in any other applications that I'm aware of.
The issue started only with Excel 2016, never with 2010 (I skipped 2013). It seems to break intermittently, but across ALL workbooks simultaneously. And like yumyumdimsum, Ctrl+Shift+Space works perfectly to select the whole sheet.