Microsoft Teams Arrows Not Working (How to Fix It)

With so many people working remotely or taking online classes in the modern era, Microsoft Teams has become a necessity in our daily lives. Also, we need that necessity to work impeccably at any time of the day, and we get very disappointed when it doesn't.

One of the flaws of Microsoft Teams, when the app fails to live up to the user’s expectations, is when the left and right keyboard arrows stop working.

If you, too, have been experiencing such troubles, keep reading this blog post to learn the troubleshooting steps given below and fix the problem.

Why are my arrows in Microsoft Teams not working?

Your Microsoft Teams arrow keys are probably not working due to some temporary bug within the app itself. Or, it might be because one or more arrows are stuck.

Also, it might be that your Scroll Lock option is active. The Scroll Lock is a function that, once enabled, causes the arrow keys to scroll through a document without moving the cursor through a text - to toggle the scroll lock function, press the scroll lock option on your keyboard.

How do I fix my arrow news not working?

You can use several methods to try solving the problem with the MT arrows not working.

Fix No.1 Restart the app and force-stop all Microsoft Teams processes

When something like this happens, it is first recommended to restart your computer as a starting point. In most cases, this solution has the highest success rate of any issues on one’s computer and might resolve this.

However, even after restarting it, the problem is still present; you should proceed by force-stopping the Teams app (you can do this either from the Taskbar or through the Task Manager).

If you are using the Teams app, an app icon should be visible in the taskbar > right-click on the MT icon on the System Tray or notification area and choose the option Quit.

If you're using the Teams web version (e.g., on Windows) > right-click on the Start option > click on Task Manager (you can also press Ctrl + Shift + Esc) > go to the Process tab and choose Microsoft Teams > click on the End Task button (bottom right corner), or right click on the program and click End Task.

Fix No.2 Clear the Microsoft Teams cache files

Also, a good troubleshooting solution that many users claim to be working for this kind of problem is to clear the MT cache files. This is due to the enormous pile of unnecessary data generated over a particular time and may affect the overall operations of the software.

So, it is always advised to erase these cached files regularly, and to do this, follow the steps given below:

1. Close and exit the Microsoft Teams app.
2. Open the file explorer, and press ‘Win +E’ on your keyboard.
3. Type in “C:\Users/username\AppData\Local\Microsoft Teams”, or if that does not work, type in “C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Teams”.
4. Once you have reached the Teams directory, navigate to the Application Cache option > click on the Cache folder and delete any files that are stored there.
5. Then, go to the Blob-storage folder and remove all the files.
6. Next, remove all files from the Cache.
7. Proceed by navigating to the Database folder and removing those files too.
8. Go to the GPU Cache folder and delete those files.
9. Go to the IndexedDB folder and delete all the “.db” files.
10. Go to Local Storage and also delete all the files from there.
11. In the last step, go to the ‘tmp’

Fix No.3 Restore part of your keyboard by holding the Shift key down

Simply restore part of the keyboard arrow functions by pressing and holding the Shift key button down - you should be able to use the left and right arrows to highlight text or adjust the cursor position.

Fix No.4 Update and restart Teams

When an issue happens, not just this one but other types of problems, you should always check to see if your Microsoft Teams app needs updating to its latest version. So, click on your profile picture and select the option “Check for updates”.

Fix No. 5 Disable GPU hardware acceleration

On your browser, click on the three dots in the > Settings > General > turn off GPU hardware acceleration > restart your Microsoft Teams to check if you can use your keyboard arrows.

Explore also how to increase font size in Microsoft Teams

Bottom line

Microsoft Teams users believe a bug inside the app causes this issue.

Unfortunately, for some, it might seem that the keyboard arrow problem has been happening for months. None of those mentioned above solutions is a permanent fix but only temporary workarounds.

So, when the problem returns, you’ll know it is time to go over these steps again.

Also, if you are interested, you can learn how to remove Microsoft Teams profile picture.