So I was in the Caspian region, clearing out a bandit place for the second time, and while playing for over an hour, suddenly, the use (E) and flashlight (F) buttons stopped working. The prompts still appear when I try to loot an enemy or switch weapons, etc. I tried using my Xbox controller, the buttons for these actions don't work with it either.
I've restarted my machine, I've checked the integrity of game files too. The keyboard is working fine.
Any help please?

That's strange. Have you rebound any keys? You can try editing the user.cfg file from the main installation directory to ensure those keys are bound properly. If that doesn't work you can try removing the user.cfg file from the directory and see if the game will generate a new, vanilla config (no promises that it will work though).

The other thing I am thinking is can you open doors and fit through small areas when the 'E' prompt comes up? If this issue only happens with looting and the flashlight, have you checked to make sure you aren't at the max capacity of scrap and chemicals and that your flashlight is charged?

Hi, thanks for the help and suggestions. It turns out this is a known bug that the devs never patched. The Internet is full of complaints about it. I tried all of the suggested tricks to solve this. The buttons work perfectly in another profile's save file. My progress in the main save is ruined. I'm in the process of getting a refund. I'm glad for the 30 day money back guarantee. Avoid the game.

I'm sorry it didn't work for you. I hope you get your money back quickly.

Same here. Trying to fix that. Hope it's not caused by something in the save games. Unfortunately all my save games are affected. Here is what happend before.

I was driving the car and suddenly my alter ego left the car and i was attacked by one of these flying deamons. He grabed me, let me fall down, i heald and killed it. Then i tried to get into the car. First i thought it's some kind of scripted event. So i have to continue by foot. Later i noticed, that i can't pickup anything. I love this game so far. But this is a huge NONO. They should have fixed that. If can't I'll refund.


So, it seems that the bug is connected to the safe games and all my safe games are affected. This is f***ing annoying. How could something like this not be patched?

Metro 2033 also has some well known and widely reported bugs that never get patched. Imo avoid this developer.