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Control / Option Keys not functioning


ryangriffith

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Although this has happened and righted itself in the past, for some reason I am unable to use any of the functionality that comes with the control / option keys in any of Accordance's search windows / maps / timelines, etc. I have the most recent version of Accordance and am not employing any keyboard shortcut programs outside of Quicksilver (turning QS off does not rectify the problem). Anyone know what to do?

 

Ryan

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Does it affect any other program? Is your number lock on, perchance?

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Does it affect any other program? Is your number lock on, perchance?

 

Nope - no other program is affected.

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And this means that I cannot shift-select multiple items in dropdowns (like in the map module) either. I ran the 7.4.2 updater and it did not repair the problem.

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I have had similar problems when my mouse was plugged in via a hub rather than directly....

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I have had similar problems when my mouse was plugged in via a hub rather than directly....

I'm not using a mouse at all....

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Hmm...

 

Restarting does not fix the problem?

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Hmm...

 

Restarting does not fix the problem?

 

Neither restarting the computer nor restarting accordance has made a difference. On my MacBook Pro, the contextual menu items will function with an external mouse attached, but the functionality for the keyboard (or an external keyboard) will not work. Even with the mouse, option-click and command-click do not work.

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This looks like a job for trashing a corrupt preference file.

Here are a few things to have a look at, just in the name of being thorough.

 

1. Are you sure you've restarted without Quicksilver running? Quit QS, then go to

System Prefs/Accounts/Login Items

and make sure you delete the Quicksilver startup item and then restart. Any help?

 

2. Go to

System Prefs/International/Input Menu

and enable the Keyboard menu by checking "Show input menu in menu bar" and also check "Keyboard Viewer". Then in Accordance, open the Keyboard Viewer and try pressing modifier keys. Which ones show up in what combinations. Are any missing among ⇧ shift, ⌃ control, ⌥ option, ⌘ command?

 

3. Go to

System Prefs/Universal Access/Keyboard

and make sure sticky keys is off. In Mouse&Trackpad tab, make sure Mouse keys is off.

 

4. Go to

System Prefs/Keyboard&Mouse/Keyboard

and click the Modifier Keys... button and see that the modifier keys are all set correctly. I'd change one of them... quit System Prefs... then go back to that panel and click "Restore Defaults".

 

5. Go to

System Prefs/Keyboard&Mouse/Keyboard Shortcuts

and peruse the shortcuts, making sure nothing looks odd. Scroll down to "Application Keyboard Shortcuts" and click the disclose triangle to make sure you have no key combinations set to Accordance.

 

6. Go to

System Prefs/Keyboard&Mouse/Trackpad

and look at your Trackpad gestures. Do you have "Zoom while holding" activated? Do you have "For secondary clicks..." activated? If so, can you two finger click in Accordance to bring up the contextual menu, but still not control click?

 

7. Go to

System Prefs/Expos

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Wow, Joe, thank you for all this. I just tried all of them, however, and none of them solved the issue. I can't tell if there is anything abnormal from the keyboard viewer in accordance - when the control key is pressed down none of the QWERTY keys are visible, but that seems to be the same in all apps.

 

I tried telling Quicksilver not to start up at login and then deleted it from the USERS startup items, but for some reason it still starts up after the restart (even though it is no longer an 'option' in system preferences > startup items). QS has been acting a little buggy since I installed a new HD two weeks ago. I'd hate to uninstall it and lose my customizations, but I'd do it if you think it would help.

 

Out side of that, which pref file am I deleting (danger)?

 

Thanks again for all your help. I certainly appreciate it.

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Ryan,

 

Thanks for coming to the seminar today. I'm bummed we couldn't get this resolved for you since it is an important option.

 

Just to confirm I think we were dealing with the option key today not the control key. Is that correct? When you want to search for a Key Number instead of a word you must use the option-click when clicking the "Search" button. Based on what I saw today it was the option-click that didn't work. Is this happening with the control key as well?

 

I'm tempted to think this is a QS issue so you may just want to remove the QS application (while keeping both ~\Library\Preferences\com.blacktree.Quicksilver & ~\Library\Application Support\Quicksilver) and see if that helps.

 

If that doesn't fix it here is where I would start.

 

First, I would create a new user on your system and attempt to log in as that user and see if it works. If it does the issue is likely in one of your User Accordance Preferences or some preference file on your account.

 

I'd also try this to see if the problem is within the main Accordance Folder Preferences file.

 

Duplicate (with command-D) the following folders:

 

\Accordance Folder\Accordance Preferences

 

In your Home directory:

 

~\Library\Accordance Preferences

 

This should create a new folder by these names with "copy" at the end of the name (e.g. "Accordance Preferences copy").

 

Finally, delete the folders from each location (Be sure to keep the copies).

 

Restart Accordance and see if the option-click function works then.

 

If this doesn't work remove the newly created folders and rename the "copy" folders back to their original name and email me and let's get together and get this resolved.

 

Thanks!

 

Jeremy

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I can't tell if there is anything abnormal from the keyboard viewer in accordance - when the control key is pressed down none of the QWERTY keys are visible...
But the point is, it is registering then, because the ^ key does highlight when you press it with Accordance in the front. That's helpful to know.

 

I tried telling Quicksilver not to start up at login and then deleted it from the USERS startup items, but for some reason it still starts up after the restart...
Go to the Quicksilver preferences/Application side menu and uncheck "Start at login". Then quick QS. (For kicks, go ahead and relaunch it and make sure the change stuck.). After quitting Quicksilver, go to the System Prefs and make sure the login item is deleted from the Accounts pane.

Finally, you need to make sure this is the case for every user.

Then restart and give it a try. Ryan, I'm suspicious of QS here. I'd hate to lose customizations, too, but last resort may be uninstalling QS, which you can do from that same preferences pane. Take screen captures of all your triggers and stuff for later reference.

 

Now, your issue isn't just with the ^ control key, right? You said, for instance, that you can't shift click, either.

 

Out side of that, which pref file am I deleting (danger)?
Have a look at this topic and this topic. Deleting pref file and starting from scratch instead of a backup is a last resort because it means entering codes for all your modules again. If you don't have too many, no problemo. But going through Jeremy's suggestions above may help pinpoint if there is an Accordance Prefs issue.
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I don't believe this is an Accordance Preferences problem, but if it is, it is most unlikely to be in the Accordance Folder/Accordance Preferences since these are the backup copy with the record of your modules. I would first remove the user Preferences (keeping a copy) and only remove both if the first option doesn't work.

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Ryan,

 

Thanks for coming to the seminar today. I'm bummed we couldn't get this resolved for you since it is an important option.

 

Just to confirm I think we were dealing with the option key today not the control key. Is that correct? When you want to search for a Key Number instead of a word you must use the option-click when clicking the "Search" button. Based on what I saw today it was the option-click that didn't work. Is this happening with the control key as well?

 

I'm tempted to think this is a QS issue so you may just want to remove the QS application (while keeping both ~\Library\Preferences\com.blacktree.Quicksilver & ~\Library\Application Support\Quicksilver) and see if that helps.

 

If that doesn't fix it here is where I would start.

 

First, I would create a new user on your system and attempt to log in as that user and see if it works. If it does the issue is likely in one of your User Accordance Preferences or some preference file on your account.

 

I'd also try this to see if the problem is within the main Accordance Folder Preferences file.

 

Duplicate (with command-D) the following folders:

 

\Accordance Folder\Accordance Preferences

 

In your Home directory:

 

~\Library\Accordance Preferences

 

This should create a new folder by these names with "copy" at the end of the name (e.g. "Accordance Preferences copy").

 

Finally, delete the folders from each location (Be sure to keep the copies).

 

Restart Accordance and see if the option-click function works then.

 

If this doesn't work remove the newly created folders and rename the "copy" folders back to their original name and email me and let's get together and get this resolved.

 

Thanks!

 

Jeremy

 

Jeremy,

 

The seminar yesterday was fantastic. I've been a user since 2001 and I learned all sorts of things that I did not know. I really appreciate the training. I hope BBC can host it again sometime.

 

Thanks for the help here as well. So, I uninstalled QS and it did not make any difference. I tried all the options that Joe suggested and, unfortunately, they did not work either. I followed your advice and created a new user and logged in and, lo and behold, accordance started right up AND THE OPTION, CONTROL and SHIFT all worked. The UI looked very different than my present settings and a highlight file was up that I have not seen in a long time. Now what does this mean? Should I go ahead and delete my prefs and see what happens?

 

Thanks Joe, Jeremy and Helen for your help with this.

 

Ryan

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All,

 

I went ahead and deleted all my pref files and restarted accordance. It made me register Accordance again, so I went ahead and added a module. Once I had a text open, I tried the function keys and they did NOT work. So they DID work if I was logged in as a new user, but they did not work when I started 'from scratch'. Any idea what I should do?

 

Ryan

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Ryan:

 

This suggests that the problem is not in your preferences but elsewhere is your user files, a conflict with something else.

 

However, I do not understand what you mean by the new user having a different UI. I guess you just mean that your personal settings in Accordance were not there, naturally.

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Helen,

 

Would a complete reinstall from the ground up solve the problem? Why will accordance work properly in a new user and improperly under my present one?

 

Ryan

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I'm trying to call you, no answer at home, and unobtainable on cell, but here you are online!

 

No, reinstalling will not solve anything. Try making a copy of the Accordance Preferences of the new user and putting them in the regular user. If it doesn't work this will prove my point that it isn't the Preferences. You can also try deleting com.OakTree.Accordance.plist from your user/Preferences.

 

We have had other users where their main user got messed up but Accordance ran fine as another user. Something is wrong with other preferences or settings or pLists or something in your user.

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I recently helped someone who was having very odd problems with CSS rendering in Firefox and Dreamweaver, and nothing worked (reinstalling apps, disabling extensions, safe boot, etc.) until we created a new user account.

 

What finally got things working back in the primary user account was to do a deep cache cleaning of all system, user, and application caches and rebooting (I used Cocktail, though I'm sure others will use other similar maintenance utilities; see this Macworld overview of maintenance tasks and utilties). So doing this kind of cleaning might be worth a try if you haven't done so yet.

 

If I were a betting man, my money would be on an obscure corrupt Rosetta cache file (especially if Accordance is the only non Intel-native app you're running)!

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I recently helped someone who was having very odd problems with CSS rendering in Firefox and Dreamweaver, and nothing worked (reinstalling apps, disabling extensions, safe boot, etc.) until we created a new user account.

 

What finally got things working back in the primary user account was to do a deep cache cleaning of all system, user, and application caches and rebooting (I used Cocktail, though I'm sure others will use other similar maintenance utilities; see this Macworld overview of maintenance tasks and utilties). So doing this kind of cleaning might be worth a try if you haven't done so yet.

 

If I were a betting man, my money would be on an obscure corrupt Rosetta cache file (especially if Accordance is the only non Intel-native app you're running)!

 

Thanks for this tip as well. I had the exact same thought this afternoon, so as soon as I got home I ran Onyx and all its options....unfortunately, did not change anything! I'd hate to have to run Accordance off another user account! I have not had any trouble with old MS office which is still non-Intel (outside the normal MS office problems!). I have not tried a safe boot yet, perhaps I'll give that a go.

 

Ryan

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All,

 

I think I have solved it. Not that I would recommend the solution, however. After duplicating my user > preference file (just in case!), I trashed the entire file and started accordance - getting the same result as logging in as a new user. Therefore, one .pref file at a time, I rebuilt the folder - checking to see how it impacted accordance. Although I cannot tell which pref it was, i was able to get accordance to work properly. Now I just have to go back and customize many of my other apps again! It is nice to have accordance back!

 

Ryan

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