0

I was recently programming in PyCharm, when I tried to open the Terminal. According to the JetBrains official documentation, the default key bind for this should be ALT + F12. When I tried this, nothing happened. This was already strange, since the keyboard is relatively new. I went into the PyCharm key bind settings, tried updating the key bind, and was shocked to see that ALT and any other key worked, but not ALT + F12.

Skimming through their docs, they had absolutely no information about this issue. I managed to find this bug report that someone managed to solve, but they didn't give a very good explanation on how to fix the issue.

Why isn't the ALT + F12 key bind working, and how can I fix it?

Xiddoc
  • 101

1 Answers1

0

This bug is caused because some other process is intercepting this hotkey. This might be some random game, tool, or Windows feature that you accidentally enabled which hooks ALT+F12, but the likely chance is that one of the following is the culprit:

  • NVIDIA GeForce Experience
  • Razer Cortex
  • Intel Graphics Settings
  • Lenovo Screen Optimizer

Let's go over each one and how to fix it.

NVIDIA GeForce Experience

*Quick side note: As of writing this (Dec 2024), I noticed that NVIDIA is trying to push users towards their new NVIDIA App. If you can, I'd recommend downgrading to the NVIDIA GeForce Experience since as of now, there doesn't seem to be a way to configure hotkeys in the NVIDIA App. If you've already upgraded, then what I did was to uninstall the NVIDIA App by using WinKey + R, then type appwiz.cpl and hit enter. From there you can find the NVIDIA App and uninstall it. After uninstalling, go to the GeForce Experience download page and install the most recent version.

  • Open the GeForce Experience
  • Click the settings cog in the top right (just to the left of your account name)
  • If you have the “In-Game Overlay” enabled, then click "Settings"
  • Click "Keyboard Shortcuts"
  • Find any conflicting keybinds (in my case, ALT+F12) and either hit the Delete key to remove the keybind entirely, or set it to something else

Razer Cortex

  • Open Razer Cortex
  • Click on the settings cog in the top right
  • Under the Settings, go to the “HOTKEYS” tab
  • Find any conflicting keybinds, and hit the Delete key to remove them

Intel Graphics Settings

  • Open the Intel HD Graphics Control Panel
  • Click on the “Options and Support” menu
  • In the “Hot Key Manager” menu, click on “Disable” to disable all the hotkeys
  • If this still doesn't solve the problem, then you can try disabling the service entirely
    • In the Windows search bar, type “Services” and hit enter
    • You should see a list of all the services, their description, statuses, etc.
    • Find “Intel HD Graphics Control Panel Service” and double-click on it
    • Next to where it says “Startup type”, change it to “Disabled”
    • Then under where it says “Service status”, if it's not stopped already, then click the button labeled “Stop”
    • You can then click “Apply” at the bottom, then OK

Lenovo Screen Reading Optimizer

If all the above still don't work for you, then you might be facing a Lenovo-specific problem. I myself don't have a Lenovo computer, but this SuperUser answer seems to suggest that there might possibly be another hotkey registered in the screen reading optimizer. Try uninstalling the “Lenovo Screen Reading Optimizer” application, and test to see if your hotkey now works.

Xiddoc
  • 101