Help Android Keyboard Issue: double letters

[onthecouch]

UPDATED WITH VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUZdvr6Pdjk

As some of you already know, I've been a big critic of the Gingerbread keyboard, specifically about an oddity that seems to occur with the first letter and/or sometimes the last letter of words repeating themselves. For example, like "tthis" or "thiss."

After a lot of investigating, and early speculation pointed to perhaps typing too fast or the over sensitivity of the Nexus S screen as the culprits. As it turns out, none of those reasons are the cause. Someone at the XDA forums discovered it has more to do with the space bar; it's a glitch with Gingerbread keyboard itself.

To recreate:

Try typing "Good game" but after the "g" in "game" backspace until the end "good" (so that the cursor is at the end of the letter 'd' in 'good'), then hit the space bar again and type the word "game" again. It should result in "ggame" despite a single press of the letter g.

So an example would go like this: Type g-o-o-d-spacebar-g-[then backspace/erase the g and the space, until your cursor is at the end of the "d" in "good"]-then hit space bar again and type "game" ... it should sometimes result in "ggame." The end result should be: "Good ggame" You don't even need to finish typing "game." It can happen even before, resulting in "Good gga"

This doesn't happen every single time, but it happens every now and then, so just keep trying. It will occur. Can anyone else recreate or is experiencing this in their typing?

I'm going to make a Youtube video of this when I get home, for those who are skeptical or can't recreate this themselves.

I reported this to Google here: Issue 14755 - android - Android keyboard glitch: double-letters - Project Hosting on Google Code and here at the Google Help Forums: Keyboard registers double-hits randomly... - Google Mobile Help. Please visit the links and star the report and/or add your own two cents.

 

[onthecouch]

I can even predict when it'll happen.

Whenever you start typing a new word, it's usually underlined (spell check or the spelling suggestion kicking into place).

Typing out "good game" looks like this "good ga " usually. But right before the glitch occurs, the "g" in "game" doesn't have the underline. Whenever it has the underline, it'll continue typing out normally. You get "good game." Whenever the underline disappears as you start typing the second word, you'll get the glitch, "good gga"

Will make video tonight, as promised.

 

[Martin J]

I'm not sure whether this helps or not, but I must have tried the "good game" test about twenty-five times, it didn't glitch at any point.

 

[onthecouch]

I'm going to make a video of this tonight and post it up on Youtube.

I just hope it comes out clearly on my small Canon cam. It's difficult to take pictures of the screen already. Will update tonight.

 

[onthecouch]

I'm not sure whether this helps or not, but I must have tried the "good game" test about twenty-five times, it didn't glitch at any point.

Thanks for trying.

Can you run me through the procedure you tried? Remember, type the first word, then the first letter of the second word, then backspace/erase that first letter AND THE SPACE (from the space bar press after the first word), then obviously hit space again and finish the second word (or as I notice, you don't even need to finish the second word). Try any two words. I can recreate this using any two words.

Will try to demonstrate everything on video tonight.

 

[StarMenace]

I'm having problems with double letters, especially things that are on the right side of the keyboard. For me though it's not just with typing, it seems like the whole touchscreen is "off" once in a while. If I turn off the screen for a few minutes then go back in it usually seems to work again... at least for awhile.

 

[quantumrand]

My hand now hurts from trying to get the glitch to happen...I get the feeling it's dependent on which app(s) you might be typing in, as well as spellcheck settings.

 

[onthecouch]

My hand now hurts from trying to get the glitch to happen...I get the feeling it's dependent on which app(s) you might be typing in, as well as spellcheck settings.

Thanks for trying. I assure you this is not a conspiracy. I can recreate this problem anywhere that allows typing.

Video is still processing on YouTube... so please stand by. I'm afraid it may not have gone through, in which case, I will upload tomorrow morning at work where the connection is more reliable and faster. If I see it goes through, I'll post the link here as soon as possible.

Stay tuned...

 

[onthecouch]

Okay, folks, my video is finally uploaded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUZdvr6Pdjk

As you can see, I can even tell when the glitch will happen depending on if the underline disappears or not whilst typing. When it does disappear, no matter what you press (be it letter or the space bar) it duplicates the first letter. As Ryandi predicted earlier, I think it has something specifically to do with a glitch with the space bar.

The reason I don't think it has to do with typing speeds or the sensitivity of the Nexus S screen is firstly, I'm demonstrating the glitch very slowly. I even pause to talk about it before the moment I demo the problem. Secondly, I don't believe it has to do with the screen sensitivity for two reasons: 1) I cannot recreate this problem on Smart Keyboard Pro, try as I may; and 2) it only happens with the first letter or the last letter of words, not coincidentally prior to or after using the space bar. It never double hits the letters in between words. For example, I never get "thhis" or "thiis," I only ever get "tthis" or "thiss".

The core issue is with the Android keyboard itself, and more specifically, has something to do with the space bar.

I've reported this to Google here Issue 14755 - android - Android keyboard glitch: double-letters - Project Hosting on Google Code and here at the Google Help Forum: Keyboard registers double-hits randomly... - Google Mobile Help. If you people would be kind enough to visit the links and star the report or even add your own two cents, especially if you're experiencing this glitch yourself, that would be fantastic.

Thanks for watching.

 

[czechplastik]

I am also unable to replicate this after numerous attempts.

 

[onthecouch]

For those who can't recreate it, that's interesting. Are you sure you're following the procedure? Type the first word, then the first letter of the second word, then backspace/erase that first letter AND THE SPACE (from the space bar press after the first word), then hit space again and finish the second word (or as demoed in the video, you don't even need to actually finish the second word). Also keep an eye out for the underline; if the underline disappears, the glitch is about to happen. It doesn't always happen, I agree, and it pops up randomly. I've had people report that they get this too; some even report that they get two double-letter hits, for example like "ththis". I've seen this too, sadly. Given that this is more software related, I'm quite certain all of us should be able to recreate this glitch. If truly not, then I suppose it could be exclusive to a few phones--but that doesn't seem to make sense unless we got different software versions of the keyboard? I don't know. In either case, the issue is very real for some. I hope you'll all star my report in the link above. Thanks again.

UPDATE: Ryandi at XDA has discovered how to recreate the no-line letter which will lead to the glitch. Here's what he wrote:

From the video, we have already seen that if the first letter is missing an underline, that particular letter will be duplicated upon keying any other letter.

Now I've found out the steps to recreate the "letter without underline". This is done by simply typing a letter while the SPACE is still being pressed, and voila, the letter after the space would not be underlined. This issue has to do with how multitouch and space (and possibly Word-prediction) are being handled by the code.

Let me give you an example by typing "hello there". Upon finishing the word "hello", I would press SPACE followed by "t". If I'm typing really fast and the SPACE is still being pressed while typing the "t" (multitouch), "t" will appear, BUT without an underline. Then the "t" would be duplicated when you type the letter "h", resulting in "hello tthere" when you finish them. And sometimes when you're typing even faster, you'd also see "hello ththere"

 

[czechplastik]

Are you sure you're following the procedure?

It's not a complicated set of actions and I have tried across several applications, SMS/Mail etc and still cannot replicate the problem. Even if I could it would be something of a non issue for me.

 

[StarMenace]

I haven't been able to replicate the said problem but like I said earlier I have a different issue that's related to the screen sensitivity.

 

[onthecouch]

Thanks for trying. It does help us get a bigger picture of the issue, even if you guys can't recreate it. Appreciate it. I've had others who can recreate the problem as per the video. It may be exclusive to some NS' and not all? I don't know. I believe it's a software related issue, so I think it should be universal to all NS' but then again, I don't know how deep this glitch goes.

The closer you try to type the next letter after hitting the space bar, the more frequent this glitch occurs.

 

[B2L]

This happens to me. Although it only happens with SwiftKey. I have tried to replicate with the gingerbread keyboard and it hasn't happened to me once

It also used to happen with SwiftKey on my old MyTouch 3G. So I'm not sure if it's specific to the nexus s. It sure does get annoying though.

 

[Martin J]

Can you run me through the procedure you tried?

Exactly as in your video (thanks for uploading that by-the-way). I've since tried some more, in the stock GMail and messages clients and in the Twitter app, and still can't get it to reproduce that double-letter behaviour.

 

[quantumrand]

I can replicate half of the glitch, though it's not the problematic half.

Example: Typing "Hello" then hitting space followed by 't' before releasing space. The 't' then is not underlined; however, typing further does not produce any duplicated letters. The underline returns once I've written a word in the dictionary. I've tried many times at various speeds with no duplication issue, so I'm thinking it must have something to do with the text prediction settings.

 

[MartinS]

I can't recreate this.

 

[delec1]

I have cn that duplication happening too, but it is not so annoying as my bigger keyboard issue.

This happens relatively often, perhaps 2-3 times a day.
If I miss type and the word is automatically replaced, and when I then go back to this word to fix it I have what I typed as an option to select among other predictions. If I do select what I had typed, and then put the cursor anywhere in the string that had just been restored, as soon as I delete any character, that area up to about the length of the string before becomes garbled (a combination of repeats and mix of what was typed). From then on the keyboard gets very sluggish to switch from and to numeric - alpha until the Latin keyboard thread crashes. At which point I have to kill the task that called the keyboard (otherwise I can still type but don't c what I type).

I thought there may b a connection to having English German French and Spanish enabled on my phone, since I have only cn it happening while typing in English and the Latin keyboard thread would crash.
I removed Spanish, but the problem persists.

It is sporadic, and there is no reproduction pattern I have noticed.