hi guys, I'm experiencing, again, something rather strange. I regularly use alt+tab to switch between applications and occasionally this is a little troublesome. The switch does work but it also, for some strange reasons if done quickly brings up the search facility. It's very peculiar and the other thing I noticed is that it seems to occurr if I use usb keyboards rather than using the laptop's one. Also, if I press the two keys not too quickly the issue doesn't occur.
Has anybody ever experienced anything like that?

Ubuntu 12.04 on dell xps 17

I don't know its specification, but it looks like it is at least 7 years old. So probably too slow to handle keyboard events sometimes and that confuses the keyboard event handler of X. But it is only a guess. Maybe you can add some RAM and that may help...

well 8GB of RAM should be enough to handle that...

Are you using the default desktop (Unity)? I remember that pressing Alt alone there would call up the Hud, and that may be what you've experienced.

The first two solutions on this page are what I would look into https://askubuntu.com/questions/1222...of-the-alt-key

Very interesting. Disabling the HUD shortcut worked @Myk267 as per the link you posted. What I don't get though, is why the issue hasn't presented itself all the time. LIke I mentioned in the thread it got worse recently but it's never been that bad
cheers