RHS keys not working on Magic Keyboard paired with iPad

We purchased the top Apple keyboard as a means of replacing our large system and laptop. My daughter had found this model excellent in her psychology practice.

When my wife pared it to her iPad she found that many of the letters on the right hand side of the keyboard didn’t work. Thinking it might be an issue with the paring I installed it on my iPad (also a new item running OS17.2).

I found the same issue, some keys on the RHS of the keyboard will not replicate on the screen.

we live in the country and are infrequent visitors to an Apple Store location.

How can we test further to confirm if it is a hardware issue?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Using the Apple keyboard