Im tearing my hair out at the moment because of this! someone, please fix!

Just tested on a coworkers machine, and there it works fine as intended.
Im on version 125.8.9 of the desktop app.
 

Why would anyone ever need a shortcut to rotate?

Same 125.8.9, what version does your coworkers’ version?

He’s on 125.9.9. that might be it then! but not i cant find the “check update” button!

It just happened for me too. Glad to see it’s not just me at least.

Figma Desktop App version 125.8.9
Optimized for Apple Silicon.

same problem, please fix it 

Still not working. What’s strange is that it just started out of nowhere, not after any update or file reload, but mid work.

Similar things seem to have happened 3 years ago as well, but then it resized the node instead of rotating it. None if the topics were resolved unfortunately.

Have you guys tried making a Support request? If we make a number of requests, maybe they'll fix it.
The shortcut works as it was for all my team, I'm the only poor person.

I hope I’ve got into some weird AB test, and I want back to the cohort A asap.

Updated to version 125.9.10, problem still persists! Rotating instead of moving back and forth!

I just wrote to them via their support channel. hope to see a fix soon! this is drivning me crazy!

I would encourage others who experience this to write them, so we can get some attention on this new “feature”

Write to their support here:
https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Automated(i assume) respons from Figma:

Hi Jens,
 
Thanks for reaching out to our Support team. I’ve reviewed your message and it sounds like the tool may not be working as intended in your case.Based on what you've shared, the shortcut for moving layers forward and backward (Ctrl + Alt + Up/Down) is unexpectedly rotating the selected object by 1 degree instead of moving the layer as it should, and this issue seems to be affecting only some users on certain versions of the app.
 
As a next step, I’ll be forwarding your case to our Technical Quality team for further investigation. To ensure you're fully supported, please reply to this email with any additional details that might provide more context about your situation. 

Good, it is not an expected behavior.
I've got a worse answer:
The Cmd+Alt+Up/Down combination isn't listed as a standard Figma shortcut, but I am seeing that this does rotate an object as you noted. I'll pass this along to our team so that we can add it to our documentation.

Exactly the same issue I’m experiencing right now. I’ve used this shortcut countless times in sessions :) very frustrated. 

 

So, i got a response from figma.

Hi Jens,
 
Priscila here, from Technical Quality. I understand you’re experiencing an issue with the shortcut ctrl+alt+up/down which isn't working as you expected. Let’s troubleshoot this together!
 
When reviewing the shortcuts available in Figma, I can see under the 'arrange' tab the shortcut listed for the bring forward and send backward actions are cmd+[ and cmd+]. Could you try these and see if they do what you're expecting? The list of shortcuts can be accessed from the ? menu in the bottom right corner of the screen > keyboard shortcuts > arrange tab.

This works for me. but still doesn't answer why only some people experience this change! so i asked that. And also asked why on earth they felt the need to change that shortcut to rotate!

I’m so glad to see I’m not the only one. I’ve been so frustrated by this in the last few days. Some of my coworkers are still experiencing the keyboard command as expected, which made it all the more mysterious why I was not. 

Please fix!

I reported it as a bug and linked to this post so hopefully they see there is not just a single user seeing this as a problem. Haven’t heard back yet.

Guys I guess we’re doomed: this is the new ACCESSIBILITY update, they advertise it.
Adobesation in its finest. cmd + ] is stupid, why do I do so common action with my pinkie.
https://www.figma.com/blog/introducing-screenreader-and-accessibility-features/

I can’t believe they changed this shortcut. They say it’s for accessibility reasons… They even had a developer on camera saying it was an accessibility update! So funny lol.

Take note, friends. When you make a pointless and nonsense update and have no reasonable explanation for it  you can just say it’s for accessibility and move on :)

Latest answer from figma

I've checked with the team and this is part of recent accessibility improvements. You can learn more about this release here, and in these links:

• Shortcut post
• Accessibility Help Center hub
• Forum post

 
Previously there were multiple shortcuts which mapped to this action, and we repurposed the less frequently used ones (ctrl+alt+up/down) for rotation. Thank you for your understanding on this.
 
I'll close this as solved for now but should you have any other questions don't hesitate to get in touch. We're always here to help!

Still makes no sense, but i guess their minds are made up. guess we just have to rewire muscle memory!

Guess a lot of my designs will look slightly tilted for the next couple of weeks. I don’t get it — cmd + alt + up/down was probably one of the shortcuts I used most in Figma.

@accessibility improvements team: How am I supposed to use this new shortcut on a (Swiss) German keyboard layout? I tried using cmd + [ but the characters [ ] are bound to alt + 5 / alt + 6.

My conclusion was to use alt + cmd + 5 / alt + cmd + 6, but that doesn’t do anything for me, probably because it triggers some conflict.

How is this shortcut supposed to be accessible for users like me with this specific keyboard layout, without having to switch to a US layout?

Or here is a CRAZY idea. let us define our own shortcuts in the desktop app! Wild idea, i know!

No way, it’s not ACCESSIBLE

added answer from Figma:

To clarify, we had multiple shortcuts for the same action: bring forth, send back. These were:

1. The shortcut you were using before ctrl+alt+up/down
2. The shortcut we've kept cmd+[ and cmd+] 

 
During accessibility improvements we identified that ctrl+alt+up/down was the least used for this action, and favoured cmd+[ and cmd+] for it. In turn, we repurposed ctrl+alt+up/down for rotation, which was part of the accessibility effort.

Nah revert this “update”

Fully support a more accessible Figma. Fully do not support removing/remapping existing shortcuts to new ones, arbitrarily and without warning. Don’t feel like this was thought through enough.