So I’m writing a long document, and I went to delete a phrase, and suddenly it started deleting everything from that point forward. I couldn’t make it stop – ESC didn’t work, DEL didn’t work, nothing stopped it. I finally went to the taskmaster to stop the task.
Scary as hell, I could have lost a ton of stuff. Any idea why this happened or how to stop it??
Stuck keyboard key.
NM, sorry.
If not physically stuck, I once had a fridge on the same outlet as my laptop. Sometimes, if the compressor started when a key was being pressed, the computer would think it was being pressed for a few seconds. So maybe a power dip can interrupt communications, and the computer will hold the previous state during that time.
I’d check the keyboard as
mentioned. It might be intermittent right now a so to confirm try typing
Q<-W<-E…
With alternating backspace as being both fast,slow,hard,soft - whatever. Sometimes heat and or cold can make an intermittent problem more noticeable - so hair dryer or (we had this spray to make cold, but probably a little excessive to buy that just for this) maybe cold peas or something for the cold.
If it is one of those cheaper keyboards - you can pry off the keys pretty easily. I think even for the lower profile keys you can do that as well, but not as sure.
Hold keyboard upside down and shake it - you’d be surprised if you’ve never done it how much crap is in there - can use compressed air and stuff to blow out junk (or better yet start with vacuum with attachment to suck - then blow). Sometimes you need to take the key off and there will be gunk you can remove with alcohol swab.
Of course if you have a laptop - adjust accordingly 
It’s a farily new laptop (a few months old), so I dunno. Thanks for the suggestions. I was out on the porch and it was kind of hot, maybe that was what did it.
if there is a touch pad on the laptop then you might be inadvertently activating the mouse cursor or buttos by resting part of your hand in that area.
if you are using an external mouse then disable the touch pad in your computer controls.
also it is good to manually resave documents after you have done work or periodically so you don’t loose stuff in a malfunction.
Sounds like a reasonable theory. Most electronics come with a spec sheet. It will usually give operating/storage temperatures for using them. Sometimes it also includes relative humidity and increase in temperature.
From browsing say four or so - I found ranges of 95-104 listed as maximum - so still pretty high, but one also listed ~18 degrees per hour as maximum change per hour in temperature.
In the future you can try remembering one of the keyboard shortcuts (such as Alt + Tab (switch windows) or Windows + M (minimize everything)) to get out of there quicker. But, this would require that your keys were interpreted in sequence - and not interrupted by a backspace - I think it would still work even if backspace held down, but not sure.
You could also make sure you have the Auto Recover option in word set correctly and to a number that makes you comfortable - the default is 10 (I think) - you might want to lower it to five or so. The trade off for lower number is speed and risk you will save after you/it fucked up. In my experience - it is good practice to get in the habit of saving your word/excel documents as soon as you start - as it makes it easier to find the correct file when you have to find it after something goes wrong.
You probably already thought of both of those, but just in case - I thought I’d mention it.
Auto Recover has saved my ass many times.
Control+z is a keyboard combination for “undo.” I use it to save my ass all the time.
I didn’t think of Control+Z, I was in a panic. I hit a lot of keys (including the DEL key which was presumably the one that was stuck.) Anyhow, again, thanks for the suggestions.
(I’m using an external mouse and mouse-pad is disabled)
Sounds like you pressed Control-Alt-Home or up- or left- arrow (which may be the stuck key).
As mentioned, if you wait until it stops, Control Z usually works.
I had a similar (but worse) problem on my work laptop recently. Turned out it was a faulty keyboard. Misbehaving mouse or mouse driver can also have similar symptoms.
Control Z was not really a help. The laptop was interpreting inputs in sequence and it would still attempt all previous inputs before paying any attention to what I did. And control Z only undid the last input not the last 2438 inputs.