w key seems not to be recognized/detected

when playing miencraft, the "w" char seems not to respond, whether in chat or in context of being bound to an action. for example, when typing in chat, pressing and holding 'w' does not produce anything for me except 1 'w', athough rarely, it will detect a held 'w'. In game, 'w' is not recognized. I attempted the following:

--rebind "forward" to char 'e'
//result: works as designed

--rebind BACK to 'w'
//problem again arises, cannot move forwards.
;;try chat
//when pressing 'w', mostly, 'w' is not recognized to have been held.