Shift key and caps lock on qwerty keyboard malfunctioning?

[badBIOSvictim]

This week an used Droid 4 was delivered by an Ebay seller. Could you please tell me how the shift key and caps lock work? If keyboard is malfunctioning, I will need to return phone.

Almost all the time, I have to hold down the shift key while simultaneously pressing a yellow symbol to type the symbol. I have to hold down the shift key and simultaneously a letter key to type a capitalized letter. Whereas, my droid 3 phone, I just press and release shift key and then press the yellow symbol key.

Most of the time the caps lock key does not work at all regardless whether I hold it down or release it..

 

[sd_shadow]

shift key should capitalize one character
lock should capitalize all till it is pressed again
could just need a factory reset or reflash firmware

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk

 

[Jacob Wardell]

I don't know if this will help at all, but I had a problem with the Shift Key not working when I had a USB keyboard plugged into my Android phone and I found a solution. Maybe the solution I found for my problem will fix your problem as well. If not, I do apologize.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 Android phone. I purchased a USB external physical keyboard that can connect with my Windows computers and my Android devices (via micro USB). The keyboard worked fine when I plugged it into my Windows computers. The keyboard worked pretty well Android phone, except for the fact that the Shift Key didn't do anything when I held it down and pressed other keys (to capitalize letters, type symbols found above the number keys, etc.). I tried a lot of stuff to get the Shift Key to work on my USB keyboard when I had it plugged into my phone. I couldn't get the Shift Key to work when I used the stock Google/Android keyboard app, the Samsung Keyboard app, or the SwiftKey Keyboard app. After a lot of trial and error with apps and settings (and a lot of frustration), I FINALLY came across an app that DOES solve the Shift key problem: The "Go Keyboard" app on the Google Play app store.

After I installed this app and set it as the default keyboard app on my Android phone (Samsung Galaxy S5), the Shift key worked just fine when I used it while it was plugged into my Android phone (allowing me to capitalize letters and type symbols above the number keys).

I hope this works for you, too!

 

[maceandroidcentral]

Thank you Jacob! That seems to be working.
Not thrilled to have another app, and I haven't yet found how to enable voice recognition. perhaps i will need to switch keyboards at such times that I want to use voice recognition. Still, I use the keyboard exclusively while I am at work, so this is a huge win, thanks to all your efforts.

UPDATE#1
I spoke too soon. Go Keyboard *sometimes* works for capitalization, but it is still flaky. What's worse, sometimes even the CAPS LOCK won't work, and if I'm in the middle of composing something, I will need to pull up the phone's on-screen keyboard and toggle the shift key from there. arrgh. Not complaining at you, Jacob,
you've at least given me hope, but this seems like an Android problem.