Instant send

[no-username]

We've identified a possible cause for this problem. It seems to be possible that Mac OS X wrongly reports a particular key as being pressed although it actually isn't.

When this problem occurs again, please open the Mac OS X Keyboard Viewer (which can be enabled in System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources) to check if there's any key shown as pressed, although it actually isn't.

Ok, this is happening now, as I type this. command-space, which is what I have set to invoke LaunchBar, works fine, it is how I got to the System Preference for Language & Text. Once there, I turned on the menu to I could bring forward the Mac OS X Keyboard Viewer.

With the Keyboard Viewer always floating on top, I can see exactly what keys are being pressed. I have "shift shift" (Double shift) set for my "Instant Send". Of the items on my desktop, I select one, and press shift twice to invoke instant send. I see the shift key activated in the keyboard viewer. So it seems that the correct keys are being pressed, and passed along. No LaunchBar action happens though.

I opened the LaunchBar prefs, and changed my instant send to single function key, which worked. I then put it back to double shift, which is now working again. So I am all set, working, but I have no idea how to fix this, other than to toggle the preferences from one instant sent keyboard action to another. And there is a chance that was a fluke, and I will not be able to rely on that as a way to get LaunchBar working again.

Thank you. If you have a release with the extra logging, I would be happy to run that and send the logs over.

[no-username]

I have this bug 100% reproducible. Does everyone affected also run Things? I would like to speak with a developer so we can track down whose bug this is. Forums are probably not the best place for this.

[norbert]

I have this bug 100% reproducible. Does everyone affected also run Things? I would like to speak with a developer so we can track down whose bug this is. Forums are probably not the best place for this.

Just contact us via http://www.obdev.at/launchbar/support.html. We have Things running here as well.

[no-username]

I have this bug 100% reproducible. Does everyone affected also run Things? I would like to speak with a developer so we can track down whose bug this is. Forums are probably not the best place for this.

Just contact us via http://www.obdev.at/launchbar/support.html. We have Things running here as well.

Cool, thanks... And... Done.

[norbert]

Does everyone affected also run Things?

It turns out, that this problem can also be traced back to the Mac OS X bug of reporting keys as pressed, although they aren't.

In this particular case, the problem can be triggered with Things' Show and autofill Quick Entry hotkey, which in turn simulates a ⌃⌥⇧⌘0 keypress in order to invoke the New To-do Containing Selection as Note command from the Services menu.

This simulated keypress seems to confuse the system in such a way that it considers the '0' key as being still pressed. And as a consequence, LaunchBar refuses to perform Instant Sent, because it gets another key reported as pressed, in addition to the tapped modifier key.

We are going to report this bug to Apple.

As a workaround, when you find Instant Send not working after using the Things hotkey, you just have to press the '0' key from the number row (not from the number pad). This will correct the system's wrong assumption that the '0' key is still pressed.

[LagaV]

Same problem here. But Things is not the reason. I currently have the ^(below esc) and ´(below F10+F11) as being invoked.

Any thoughts which application this might trigger?

LagaV

[om3ga777]

Nope, Things is not _the_ problem (maybe it also causes problems, but sometimes InstaSend works when Things is running and I already hit its "fast input shortcut", and sometimes LB is the only running application and InstaSend just doesn't want to work).

If I remember correctly, the problems for me started to happen after the upgrade to 10.6 - a friend of mine reports the same thing, so I suppose LB is not entirely compatible (or 10.6 introduced some strange new bug).

Nevertheless this problem is _extremely_ annoying for me and I find myself using LB less and less because of this. I will definitely try Alfredapp's "Pro" functions in some weeks, as LB doesn't seem to make a lot of progress concerning this problem.

[JC]

Any solution to this? I just bought LB 5, looking forward to instant send -- now it doesn't work

[norbert]

I'm glad to tell that we finally found a workaround for this nasty Mac OS X bug that caused Modifier Taps to fail under some circumstances.

This bug can easily be triggered by invoking a keyboard shortcut which in turn creates a simulated keypress. For example, take this simple AppleScript

Code: Select all

tell application "System Events"
   keystroke "c" using command down
end tell

and run it in AppleScript Editor by pressing Command-R.

These sort of nested keypresses obviously confused the system in such a way that it reports one of the involved keys as still pressed, although it has actually already been released. As a consequence, LaunchBar's modifier tap detection refused the tap, because a second key was wrongly assumed to be pressed in addition to the modifier key.

We now found a way to detect and eliminate those wrongly reported keypresses.

Check out our latest nightly build (v668), which already includes the workaround.

[sjk]

I'm glad to tell that we finally found a workaround for this nasty Mac OS X bug that caused Modifier Taps to fail under some circumstances.

Excellent! Thanks for following up with this.