Alcatel One touch fierce XL soft buttons not working?

[Windows Central Question]

My touch screen works just fine, responds to touch and have no issues, however, the soft keys, I think that's what they are called. The touch screen buttons on the bottom of the phone, there are 3, back, home and an APP button, you can hit to close out all the APPs currently running or just hit it to get to an APP easier that you have up. Those, are the ones not working, or I guess one is not working. The back and home buttons work, but the APP button does not. It did this to me less than a month ago, I got desperate and did a factory reset on it. That did the trick, but now it's doing it AGAIN!! I don't want to have to keep wiping out my phone and doing a factory reset just do fix it. Is there something else I can do to troubleshoot it or fix it?! It makes my phone run slow as molasses when I have all the apps running and can't close them out.