Can't type ingame

[subnet001 4]

For some reason i am not able to type in boxes for city and mayor name. All the hotkeys for zones, buildings, etc work and i can use arrow keys, even when naming.

I'm currently running a steam installed copy on windows 10 with no mods installed, apart from the SC4 launcher. 

Has anyone else encountered this? Thanks in advance!

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

That's certainly bizarre. I'm just popping in so I can watch and see what the solution turns out to be.

I do recall reading somewhere someone had a similar problem inasmuch as selectively they couldn't type somewhere in the game. Might have been the cheats popup, but I'm not certain of that. The part I do remember is they could type in Notepad (or some text editor), copy the text, and then go back into the game and paste the text as their workaround. I don't recall if a full solution was found there.

Here's me just guessing, but is it possible some antivirus program is being a bit too aggressive and somehow blocking that part? (That's just grasping at straws tho since the game will recognize F-Keys and Arrows.)

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

4 hours ago, subnet001 said:

i can use arrow keys, even when naming

As long as everything is installed and working properly otherwise accordingly to Steam and Win 10, then I'm just looking at the immediate problem. 

So this is happening in the Establish New City window that appears when you click on the Mayor Hat.    Is the text 'New City' appearing highlighted in the City Name box?   Is there a blinking cursor in the box?   Can you press <SPACEBAR> to clear the 'New City' text?  Can you press <ENTER> to use the default names?

If you can use arrow keys but can't type in text then you could try using an ALT code to see if that will at least start the entry of text.

With Num Lock ON and using the number keypad, press and hold down ALT, then press 4 and 6, then let go of ALT.  If that works a period <.> will appear in the text box.   You could then try to continue typing with text keys.

I took the idea of using ALT codes from a reply by Cyclone Boom to the question as to if you 'Can leave city names blank?'.  

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

4 hours ago, subnet001 said:

i am not able to type in boxes for city and mayor name

Renaming a city requires the "WhereRuFrom" cheat (type Crtl-X, then double-click in the popup, select WhereRuFrom, then type the new name).

Mayor name pertains to a player, so it will always be your name at the time you found a city. It's been so long since I set mine that I can't recall how, but it must be in the settings somewhere. I don't know if it can ever be changed after the founding of a city.

[subnet001 4]

12 minutes ago, RandyE said:

Is the text 'New City' appearing highlighted in the City Name box?   Is there a blinking cursor in the box?   Can you press <SPACEBAR> to clear the 'New City' text?  Can you press <ENTER> to use the default names?

'New City' initially appears highlighted with a blinking cursor. I can move the cursor with arrowkeys and i can even use backspace. Space does nothing, neither does enter.

The ALT command did not seem to work either. 

The text box doesn't seem to accept any input at all but the game clearly recognizes input. 

[subnet001 4]

5 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

Renaming a city requires the "WhereRuFrom" cheat (type Crtl-X, then double-click in the popup, select WhereRuFrom, then type the new name).

Mayor name pertains to a player, so it will always be your name at the time you found a city. It's been so long since I set mine that I can't recall how, but it must be in the settings somewhere. I don't know if it can ever be changed after the founding of a city.

The ctrl-x box has the same issue, no input. Double clicking the box didn't seem to do anything either but copying and pasting did!

Also discovered that pasting into the city name and mayor name boxes works, which i guess is kind of a workaround. Thanks!

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

23 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

I don't know if it can ever be changed after the founding of a city.

The cheat code for renaming Mayor name is: hellomynameis <name>

15 minutes ago, subnet001 said:

Also discovered that pasting into the city name and mayor name boxes works, which i guess is kind of a workaround. Thanks!

That's funny I tried Cori's mention of pasting text and I couldn't get that to work, but if it works you can also use SHIFT-INSERT if that's faster for you.    

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

1 minute ago, RandyE said:

That's funny I tried Cori's mention of pasting text and I couldn't get that to work,

You have to hold your mouth just right with your tongue hanging out slightly and to the left while you do it.

Seriously tho, it could be the difference between trying it while in Windowed Mode vs Full Screen.

[subnet001 4]

Just now, CorinaMarie said:

Seriously tho, it could be the difference between trying it while in Windowed Mode vs Full Screen.

So far i've been trying both, none seem to cooperate.

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

2 minutes ago, subnet001 said:

So far i've been trying both, none seem to cooperate.

Wait. Didn't you just say the workaround worked?

25 minutes ago, subnet001 said:

Also discovered that pasting into the city name and mayor name boxes works, which i guess is kind of a workaround.

 

[subnet001 4]

Just now, CorinaMarie said:

Wait. Didn't you just say the workaround worked?

No, sorry i meant that i can't type in neither full screen nor windowed, but copy/paste works in both.

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

1 minute ago, subnet001 said:

i meant that i can't type in neither full screen nor windowed

This is the part that's really confuzzling. Especially with other keys working.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Wow, you joined in March 2013, and these are your first posts?!? Welcome to Simtropolis (belated)!

Where are you in the world, and what keyboard and/or localization might be affecting your UX?

[Fantozzi 4,067]

16 hours ago, subnet001 said:

For some reason i am not able to type in boxes for city and mayor name. All the hotkeys for zones, buildings, etc work and i can use arrow keys, even when naming.

First: I never encountered this and this seems something rare and strange to me. Maybe to explain my view on this is of some help, but I doubt and I'm clueless.

I think we have to investigate and therefore need more information. I think the hotkeys are hardcoded while for typing - don't know.

 What I do know: I can use german letters in the boxes in game while those letters aren't supported internally. My bios driver wouldn't provide them too.

But when I change my keyboard layout from german to english in windows - the letters 'z' and 'y' are exchanged - as they are on different keys depending on the layout. So if I switch to english my 'z' becomes a 'y'. Now if I start SC4 - the layout changes I did in windows are igonred. In SC4 my 'z' is still a 'z', no matter what I switch in windows.

So to me this means, language settings/keyboard layout in windows is ignored by the game and therefore uses its own, independend from os. Seems also plausible to me - as if I remember right windows XP (time of 2003) didn't support this language switching yet - you had to install the operating system in one langue and only this language was supported and it was the job of the applications to provide different languages than the os was. My conclusion: SC4 provides own fonts for the different languages and also own keyboard layouts.

So this shouldn't be a problem of language setting in windows.

But - if you can scroll the city by moving the arrow buttons, if you can use the hot keys - this indicates the keyboard is recognized, it is there. So basically it works.

So you see - it's a quite strange problem - which atm I can only imagine it's a faulty installation of the game itself.

Maybe to check:

1. looking into the device-manager if a generic windows keyboard driver is used or something specific from the keyboard manufacturer.

2. I'm on w7 - hopefully this works on w10 too: Run regedit (registry editor in windows), just type 'regedit' in the inout box where you can search for installed software - go for the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then you have to search for a folder named 'Maxis' - it can be at different subfolders there, dependend on your machine, maybe it's even a 'Steam' folder, dependend where you pruchased the game, so I can't tell where to find the folder exactly. There should be a folder named SimCity 4 and in this folder there are settings. There it is said what language what region and what locale settings there are for the game.

But well, that's all guessing.

 

[rsc204 21,806]

2 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

So to me this means, language settings/keyboard layout in windows is ignored by the game and it provides it's own.

Windows happily supports changing the keyboard input during a session, but depending on usage can be on a per-application basis. I.e. the default setting is used when a new app is ran. By default use of SHIFT (left) and ALT will switch between inputs, so if the Z & Y are not working as you wish, try that shortcut and see if it changes things.

If not, perhaps what's actually happening is that there are two settings in Windows for this. You may need to also set the Unicode language to match your preferred keyboard input too. In 7 that's found under Region and Language in Control Panel, can't remember offhand for XP, but I think it's different.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

In support of @Fantozzi's suggestion that it could be related to the game itself there was a similar problem with a different game: I can't type in the Sims 4. The solution there was setting the game back to factory defaults. I realize those steps won't be the same for SC4, but it does imply something game related could be the culprit. So, what about making a complete backup of the Plugins and Region folders and try uninstalling and reinstalling the game? The backup of your own content beforehand would be the most important part of this especially considering some plugins might not be available any more since some sites no longer exist.

For anyone else running across this thread: A major caveat would be if your game is the digital one from Origin. They have reverted to an unpatched (and unpatchable) version so reinstalling would be a step backwards and that would be a very bad thing.

[subnet001 4]

14 hours ago, jeffryfisher said:

Wow, you joined in March 2013, and these are your first posts?!? Welcome to Simtropolis (belated)!

Where are you in the world, and what keyboard and/or localization might be affecting your UX?

Thanks! You might be on to something with the localization. I'm in Denmark and therefore using a danish keyboard layout. It hasn't given me any issues before and the game was even able to parse åæø. 

 

@Fantozzi I found the language file, says English US. I switched my keyboard layout but it didn't seem to work.

@rsc204 My system locale is set to English (United States). I haven't been changing it on this machine.

@CorinaMarie I tried clean installs several times before posting here, i think the issue lies somewhere between the game and my system.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,578]

4 hours ago, subnet001 said:

 

@CorinaMarie I tried clean installs several times before posting here, i think the issue lies somewhere between the game and my system.

Well, phooey. I'm out of ideas, but good luck with it.

[Propfam 2,286]

Try to contact Steam for SKU2/Europe copy. Maybe, your copy isn't SKU2. In SKU2, there is Danish and Finnish support. When in autorun, select your language. Maybe, support for non-normal Latin character isn't supported in SKU1/North America.

If doesn't work, you can try to reinstall DirectX (DX9 is fine). DirectX includes components needed for gaming. But, region dll availability isn't guaranteed 100%.

Last resort, you can reinstall Windows. After installing, you should install DX9 and SimCity 4, of course.

I hope this is helpful. Thanks.

[Dead_End 1,621]

Bump!

I encountered this same problem today after previously having played the game without any keyboard issues. Figured it must have been some setting I only changed recently and luckily I was able to fix it. Turns out that it was due to changing my regional format from English (United States) to English (Netherlands). Changing it back to the original settings and restarting the game solved the issue.

Hopefully this will be of some use to people in the future who like me stumbled upon this thread through Google.

[Cyclone Boom 16,854]

15 minutes ago, Dead_End said:

Hopefully this will be of some use to people in the future who like me stumbled upon this thread through Google.

Absolutely, and here is the ideal example why nowadays we're very open to older threads being bumped. Your solution is bound to help others who encounter the same problem when searching, and it's very thoughtful how you've decided to post here with the answer.

[Dead_End 1,621]

3 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Absolutely, and here is the ideal example why nowadays we're very open to older threads being bumped. Your solution is bound to help others who encounter the same problem when searching, and it's very thoughtful how you've decided to post here with the answer.

Nothing worse than finding an old thread with your exact problem and no leads for a possible solution!

[Elmo 3]

Thanks to Dead-End for providing the solution to this problem

I have not played SimCity for many years and had this problem when starting up again

The solution was to change the regional format from English(Denmark) to English(united states)

[Dead_End 1,621]

2 hours ago, Elmo said:

Thanks to Dead-End for providing the solution to this problem

I have not played SimCity for many years and had this problem when starting up again

The solution was to change the regional format from English(Denmark) to English(united states)

Good to hear! I believe the game sticks to the regional format used when it was installed. So if you do need to switch to another format a clean reinstall of the game would set it to the new one.