Why won't my screen auto rotate on my Surface Pro 3, and why won't my detachable keyboard register?

[Windows Central Question]

I turned on my tablet this morning and the screen orientation was stuck in portrait and wouldn't not auto rotate to landscape or flipped portrait. Also my detachable keyboard would not register/ light up when I turned on my pro 3. I'm assuming that is related to the screen issue. I have restarted my tablet, refreshed all files and even backed up and reset to factory settings which were all suggested by the website. Any other ideas or solutions? My tablet is a little over a year old and don't think that it should be having this issue already.

 

[Patrick Tack]

Re: Why won't my screek auto rotate on my Surface Pro 3, and why won't my detachable keyboard regist

Hi,
Having the exact same issue, keyboard not recognized and rotation issue
Mine is also about a year old and a reinstall did not resolve the issue
Also having onedrive issues with syncing
Hopefully there will be a update soon....
Patrick

 

[rdubmu]

Take the keyboard off, and then unselect the autorotation button


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[daigen]

I'm having the same problems. I reinstalled Win8 and screen rotation and type cover wouldn't work. Upgraded that clean install to Win10 and same issues. The external display also doesn't work on my surface dock.

 

[daigen]

Take the keyboard off, and then unselect the autorotation button


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Neither of those work.

 

[RiccardoPastena]

Step #1 - Boot your Surface into W10.
Step #2 - Hold the volume rocker in the up position and hold down on the power button until the Surface shuts down. Continue holding down both the volume up and power buttons until the Surface turns back on and show's it's "Surface" splash screen. Continue holding down both buttons until the Surface turns off a second time. Release both buttons.
Step #3 - Turn your Surface on once again. If you've done everything right, you should see "Updating Your System" appear on the splash screen along with a percentage counter. Don't touch the Surface until it completes this process and you find yourself at the lock screen.

IF the system is not booting up try the procedure releasing the Power button and alternatively the Volume UP button. It could show as well a blue screen saying like "Fix options..." if you get to that screen just normally reboot and you should be good to go

 

[daigen]

Step #1 - Boot your Surface into W10.
Step #2 - Hold the volume rocker in the up position and hold down on the power button until the Surface shuts down. Continue holding down both the volume up and power buttons until the Surface turns back on and show's it's "Surface" splash screen. Continue holding down both buttons until the Surface turns off a second time. Release both buttons.
Step #3 - Turn your Surface on once again. If you've done everything right, you should see "Updating Your System" appear on the splash screen along with a percentage counter. Don't touch the Surface until it completes this process and you find yourself at the lock screen.

IF the system is not booting up try the procedure releasing the Power button and alternatively the Volume UP button. It could show as well a blue screen saying like "Fix options..." if you get to that screen just normally reboot and you should be good to go

Thanks for the help! I actually found this solution on the Surface Forums as well!
With the device on and logged in I held down the Volume Up AND Power Button at the same time until the device powered down. Waited a few minutes and powered it back on. Now the Type Cover and screen rotation work! I'll try my dock and external display tomorrow (when I'm back at work) but I'm thinking that issue is solved as well.

What a pain trying to figure this out!! But glad I have my Surface back in working order!

 

[RiccardoPastena]

at least you did not ship your touch keyboard to MS. At least i got a new one...

 

[cirEOak]

I can't thank you enough for the help! I'm an IT Manager working remotely today and I was about to flip out.

This happened to me on two other occasions. Both were after a low battery event. After those two events, Windows 10 complained of not being able to recognize a USB device. It was definitely referring to the keyboard because when I started to touch the touchpad, the errors kept popping up, but when I stopped touching the touchpad, the errors stopped. I thought the type cover keyboard was defective so I bought a new one. Needless to say, I now have a spare keyboard:eck:. The past two times this occurred, I accessed the BIOS, changed the on-screen keyboard setting to 'show', then back to 'auto' without rebooting the Surface, and somehow that brought the keyboard back to life.

But this time was different. There were no USB errors, and the BIOS trick didn't work. But, thankfully I ran in to this thread and it fixed my problem. Again, thank you!

So, I have a few questions:

1 - After I did the volume rocker / power button trick, I noticed the system time was about 15 minutes behind. What is this trick actually doing? Restoring a last known good configuration or something like that?

2 - Can we do anything to prevent this from happening in the future, besides using it for skeet shooting?

Thanks!

 

[kpsom]

Concerning time setting being 15 min. behind, I was able to solve it by accessing Time & Language settings page where one can select "Set Time Automatically" setting ON or OFF. My setting was ON while time was indeed 15 min behind. I flipped the setting from ON to OFF and back to ON again. After some 2 minutes (in my case) time was automatically adjusted and correct. I hope this helps.