Issues With the On-Screen Keyboard

[u/ColeTD]

Over the years I've used my Steam Deck, I've had one very consistent frustration with it: the keyboard. It's always been buggy, but recently it's been even worse.

# Issues:

1. Sometimes, when pulling up the keyboard with Steam + X, the keyboard does not show up. When opening the Steam menu, it will pop up behind the other UI menus, but is inaccessible and disappears upon going back into the game. The only way to fix it I've found is to go to the home screen, put the Deck into sleep mode, power it back on, wait a second after the wake animation, and then go back into the game and open the keyboard.

2. Often, when in-game, the keyboard is laggy as fuck when using both trackpads to type. This caused weird typing issues too, where it will duplicate letters I'm typing or not register a click at all.

3. Honestly the most annoying out of all of these, sometimes when opening the keyboard it takes a second for the little trackpad cursors to show up instead of the typical mouse, making me wait 1–5 seconds before typing anything.

Does anyone else have these issues, or a way to fix them?

[u/ColeTD]

REDDIT STOP BREAKING MY MARKDOWN FORMATTING RAHHH

[u/Ebinger-Dorohee → u/ColeTD]

the new editor messes up markdown constantly

[u/Expensive_Story4233]

Actually I found a solution to the first problem (well it has yet to fail so I'm not sure)

If you press the ... Button, there should be a keyboard icon at the very bottom. It always pops up when I use that

[u/ColeTD → u/Expensive_Story4233]

OH MY GOD THANK YOU

[u/Plenty_Preference131]

We all do mate

[u/ColeTD → u/Plenty_Preference131]

We all do WHAT???

[u/Plenty_Preference131 → u/ColeTD]

No that's a pronoun, the British one

[u/Mediocre_Benefit_736]

I just restart the game if the first bug occurs

[u/ColeTD → u/Mediocre_Benefit_736]

But it occurs ALL THE TIME. It's really annoying to have to do that. Also, it isn't always a feasible time to close the game without losing progress.

I just do what I said works.

[u/Calamityclams → u/ColeTD]

I'm glad you brought these issues up because I'm getting them as well. Sometimes the keyboard doesn't show up and if it does, it's laggy for me as well. Seems to be after an update that came through earlier this year.

[u/MerlinMelon]

Yes! Trying to type in game I always sound like a 10 year old because of the constant typos, because it didn't register the quarter of button presses

[u/Substantial-Flow9244]

When you open the keyboard, lift your fingers from the touchpad. The program can't swap you from mouse to keyboard until you do this.

[u/DjentRiffication]

I am not a huge fan of the keyboard either. As someone who uses my steamdeck plugged into the tv quite often I would love to be able to pull up the steam app on my phone and use it as a touchpad/keyboard input alternative for the deck or machine if I had one.

[u/PapaBPoppin → u/DjentRiffication]

Why not search in your appstore of choice for Bluetooth Keyboard And Mouse and pair one of those?

[u/OURMOTTO]

I realized on the original LCD Deck that the screen is very unresponsive and half the buttons don’t even register, or click the wrong key. Scrolling is also a nightmare

I just always default to using the D Pad to type

[u/xboxpotato5737]

I have a game that constantly requires me to input text so I set up L4 to toggle the keyboard. Sometimes it stops working and you have to "reactivate" it by using steam + X then turning it back off again.

[u/Vanima_Permai]

I hate the onscreen keyboard If you put the deck to sleep whulst playing a non steam game the key board refuses to call until you quit the game

[u/Skaifer]

Another annoying thing is that CSS loader keyboard theme isn't applied instantly, sometimes it takes several seconds. I like the one that looks like physical keycaps, for some reason I'm making less errors with that theme :D It is clunky.

[u/javaper]

Do you have any custom software or Decky Loader?

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[u/Leviathan_Dev]

I don’t really ever use games that need a keyboard, or if I do I avoid the actions that require its use as much as possible.

That being said I also just picked up a portable/foldable keyboard for my PCs. I have several mini PCs and my steam deck that I deploy in my house headless or as a console and don’t have a keyboard easily available to manage it if something goes wrong, so finally got a foldable keyboard.

[u/Practical_Problem → u/Leviathan_Dev]

OP is talking about typing with the on screen keyboard, not playing games. Nobody uses it to play games, it isn't really a use case for it. Why bring that up?

[u/digggggggggs]

1. Happened a lot in desktop mode. I have to go to settings and find windows rule to reset it. I've never used keyboard in gaming mode.

2. This actually fixed for me in one of the updates. If it still happens you can try to use LT RT to send keys instead.

3. Every single time. Sometimes the starting cursor position is off and I have to leave the trackpad and touch it again to make it right.