spacebar for handtool / option for drag copy command no longer working in Illustrator

[craigverse]

I do a lot of design work in Illustrator cs3.

Normally when working with a document I use the spacebar to quickly bring up the handtool to drag around my document. This no longer works.

Shift no longer works for keeping art proportional when scaling.

Option no longer works when selecting then dragging artwork to make it copy.

Pressing h on the keyboard still activates the handtool though, same for pressing something like a and bringing up the direct selection tool.

Any suggestions on how to being back the other functionality on the keyboard? Perhaps a plist file I need to delete!

Halp! I'd greatly appreciate it! :confused:

[jerryrock]

Hold down Command+Option+Shift while starting Illustrator to reset preferences. This should be the first troubleshooting step.

[craigverse]

Hold down Command+Option+Shift while starting Illustrator to reset preferences. This should be the first troubleshooting step.

I'd actually forgot that trick. Thanks. That didn't work though. Then I went into system preferences -> keyboard shortcuts -> restore defaults thinking that might affect something.

That however didn't work either. Then I restarted. It's still not working.

One thing I noted is that when I press option when I have something selected I get the double arrow as if it's going to make a copy when I drag but then it doesn't.

I do not get a hand tool when pressing the spacebar though. :[

Any other suggestions out there?

[ox4dboy]

I just started experiencing this problem myself.

There is a good discussion here:
CS3 Bugs? Hand Tool & Proportional Scale Not Working (http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?14@@.3bc40cb4/0)

None of those suggested fixes have worked for me, but they might for you? More or less, here is a summary of that link:


reset AI's preferences by holding down SHIFT + OPTION + ⌘ (command/Apple) (Windows Shft+alt+ctrl) while starting Illustrator
deleting Illustrator's preference file from your Mac "user"/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.illustrator.plist
disabling Spotlight's shortcuts that use space bar in Spotlight's preference pane
"somebody in another topic suggested to kill some processes in the Activity Monitor to see what was causing the trouble. I then found out that my Last.fm helper was the trouble"
go to window>workspace>default to resets the panels and the key commands
update MS Office to the most recent patch
"turn off the replication in Entourage and do it manually"
Restart the Mac and DO NOT launch Entourage. Work like that for a while and see if the keys respond correctly.
update Quicken if you have that installed
quit VPN or other log on item that requires the use of a password


I've tried all but 4,7,8, and 10 with no success. I am about to test those in a minute and will report back ASAP.

Everything worked fine for me up until today; here's what's unique to today:

I did a "Save as..." from Illustrator CS4 to CS3
I enable File Sharing in my Network preferences today (for the first time) and copied the file to another computer via my Network
I opened the file in CS3 on the other networked computer when I noticed Space bar did not trigger the Hand tool. FYI _ i am not working directly from the Network.
I swapped keyboard and monitors via hot swap - unplugged from Mac #1 and plugged into Mac #2


Other applications that are concurrently running:

Parallels
Outlook (via Parallels)
Firefox (Mac)
Font Explorer X Pro


Before today I used the same applications + Illustrator with out problems. Anyone else have a suggestion or a fix?

[DennyMcEntire]

I was having the same issue. VERY frustrating. After reading this thread I noticed that I, too had Firefox opened (same as ox4dboy). So I quit firefox and my keyboard shortcuts were back! Seems like a pretty obscure bug.

[DennyMcEntire]

Another program that seemed to break it today was Textmate. Just thought I'd capture that here in case it's useful to anyone else.

[cyarema]

I've had the same problem....my problem was that the I opened word before opening illustrator and throwing all my illustrator preferences off. But as long as i remember to open illustrator first, I don't have that problem. So aggravating. Took me days to figure it out.

[cardboardcowboy]

I have just experienced this issue for the first time and that's the reason I found this thread.

I can add that the problem for me was with the recently released Hulu Desktop application. My spacebar wasn't bringing up the hand tool so I closed the Hulu app and all is well again. It could be because the app supports the use of an apple remote (a feature I love, by the way). I've never had any issues with any other programs though. Just thought I'd give a heads-up.

[Alona]

Hi. I am still having the same issues, with Illustrator CS4.

- hand tool doesn't come up with spacebar pressed
- shift doesn't help to scale proportionally
- holding option and dragging (even thou it gives a double arrow) doesn't copy
- space+apple key for Zoom+, and space+apple key+option for Zoom- don't work either (used them for years - soooo frustrating!!)

Tried trashing AI prefs, quitting Safari, word, VPN, Mail... disabled Spotlight space prefs... Nothing works!!

Please help!
~Alona

[Alona]

whatever it was - it finally just got fixed!!!
right after i posted my message. i kept trying all the solutions described above, and something did the trick... not sure what exactly, as by that point i was already pretty desperate and didn't keep track of what and in what order i was doing....

thank you for sharing your experience!


Hi. I am still having the same issues, with Illustrator CS4.

- hand tool doesn't come up with spacebar pressed
- shift doesn't help to scale proportionally
- holding option and dragging (even thou it gives a double arrow) doesn't copy
- space+apple key for Zoom+, and space+apple key+option for Zoom- don't work either (used them for years - soooo frustrating!!)

Tried trashing AI prefs, quitting Safari, word, VPN, Mail... disabled Spotlight space prefs... Nothing works!!

Please help!
~Alona

[linzibop]

Well would you know it, Word was the culprit for me! Had to trash preferences and restart, but thank god that panic is over! Thanks god for this forum!

[Steffy15]

If you're having problems with Firefox etc affecting Illustrator try using this browser instead

http://caminobrowser.org/

I have just downloaded it to try it and see if this works better than Firefox with Illustrator open.

[maximusimo]

Hey,

was experiencing the same problem. Turns out after closing my open apps one by one it was only when I closed my Internet Browser Camino that Illustrator returned to normal. I restarted it after closing each app by the way.

Hope this helps someone else

[greezychicken]

I've had this same problem and it frustrated me to no end. It ends up the culprit was Firefox 3.6 Beta 5. Everytime I had Illustrator and Firefox 3.6 open the issue would happen. It's weird because Firefox 3.5 (the current stable mass version) was perfectly fine.

Oh well.

[soccerkingpilot]

I have just experienced this issue for the first time and that's the reason I found this thread.

I can add that the problem for me was with the recently released Hulu Desktop application. My spacebar wasn't bringing up the hand tool so I closed the Hulu app and all is well again. It could be because the app supports the use of an apple remote (a feature I love, by the way). I've never had any issues with any other programs though. Just thought I'd give a heads-up.

I had the same problem which was easily fixed by restarting Hulu. The way I understand it you have to open illustrator before Hulu to avoid problems.

[design-is]

Just experienced this issue for the first time... For no reason it just happened. Weird.

Restarting Firefox did the trick.

[punodostres]

I closed Mint.com from my browser (Firefox) and the space bar works again.

[numbir9]

I had the same issue. Spacebar did not work for hand tool.

I run firefox all the time. (currently on 3.6.2) along with illustrator cs4. Never been a problem for me.

Problem occurred for the first time today. Just installed 4 gb ram (for a total of 8gb. restarted machine, opened firefox, opened illustrator. all of a sudden, spacebar/handtool did not work.

so I did a websearch, found this forum, tried all the fixes, including resetting prefs. nothing worked. saw someone suggest to quit firefox.

So I quit firefox, and bam, all good. I was even able to restart firefox, and it all still works.

dont know if this has to do with the new ram install or what, but in any case, works now. I'd say try that before anything else.

[tags]

Hey thanks to this forum I had my problem solved too.

I just experienced it, space bar and everything else I do with those magic keys, except for the control key was not working. Usually a reboot seems to clear all problems. To my surprise it did not neither did the option/command/shift and rebooting Illustrator.

After reading on, I tried both deleting the preferences and quitting out of Firefox. My Spacebar and constraining with shift key, etc. now WORKS!!!

Thanks!:p

[Lynxo]

I just faced the same problem with the space bar not working as a quick hand tool, and after reading the thread, I tried to deactivate the latest plug-in I added to FireFox (Save Flash Video) and voilà! The problem was solved. No need to reset preferences of AI, or even quit FF.

Thanks for the help.

[hellolovely]

I had exactly the same problem in Illustrator CS3. I went through the various fixes listed above and nothing seemed to help.

I then narrowed it down to being a Firefox problem, which only happens when I had hotmail.com running in the background.

Now all I do it log out of Hotmail and the problem fixes straight away, no need to even restart Firefox.

It worked for me, might work for you too!

:):)

[lpar69]

I experienced the same problem today with Illustrator CS4, no warnings.. it just appeared from nowhere and it is indeed frustrating. It disappeared when I quit Firefox. I was able to reproduce the problem when I restarted and run FF before Illustrator. Problem does not seem to appear if I start Illustrator before FF. Thanks again!

[design-is]

Opening up a tab and logging into a wordpress admin usually buggers it for me... In case that's useful to anyone :)

[sarno]

I turned off Firefox and Ill. CS4 works fine now. Told my co-worker about this and his problems with CS4 went away as well. Guess we'll have to stick to Safari until a fix comes out.

Thanks to everyone for all of the helpful information in this thread!

[jag-mac-2010]

Hi. I am still having the same issues, with Illustrator CS4.

- hand tool doesn't come up with spacebar pressed
- shift doesn't help to scale proportionally
- holding option and dragging (even thou it gives a double arrow) doesn't copy
- space+apple key for Zoom+, and space+apple key+option for Zoom- don't work either (used them for years - soooo frustrating!!)

Tried trashing AI prefs, quitting Safari, word, VPN, Mail... disabled Spotlight space prefs... Nothing works!!

Please help!
~Alona

I started having the exact same trouble yesterday. So odd, and so unexplainable. So I restarted Illy and even my Mac, same deal. Today I opened the file again, and still no hand tool, shift contrain, etc. So I Googled it and found this thread.

I tried a bunch of the above solutions (reseting Illustrator prefs, closing apps and helper apps from Activity Monitor, and even quitting Firefox) but to no avail.

So it seemed everybody had this concensus that it was Firefox causing the issue, but when I quite firefox nothing changed (and I even waited to make sure it was all quit, and checked the activity monitor).

Well, I actually browse the web from Google Chrome, and do my development from Firefox, so I had both Chrome with several tabs open and Firefox.

I ended up closing one of my Chrome windows with like 13 tabs, and still no better. But then I closed my Chrome window with 31 tabs and voila - hand tool restored.

I've even opened Chrome back up with the first 13 tabs, and all is well. So I'm betting the real issue is not the browser, but a script or something in one of the tabs I had open among the 31. It must be some Flash based bug (ironically) that is screwing up Illustrator.

So if you have this trouble, it too and your not using firefox, just try closing out of all of your open web pages, no matter what browser.

[design-is]

It must be some Flash based bug (ironically) that is screwing up Illustrator.

So if you have this trouble, it too and your not using firefox, just try closing out of all of your open web pages, no matter what browser.

Strangely I always guessed (without putting any thought into it) that it was a JavaScript issue... But I think your theory is far more likely.

[spillahcrown]

I had the same problem in CS5. All my quick keys stopped functioning. I read this thread, quit firefox and Illustrator started to work again.

Very strange.

[Wee Beastie]

This has been bugging me for a really long time. I just ignore it mostly, but then I randomly find myself super annoyed by it (like right now). I too find that it happens with both Chrome and Firefox.

I am finding a tentative connection with logging in to various things, like Basecamp for instance. If I fire up Illustrator and I'm already logged in using Chrome, keys disabled. Log out, close down browser and problem solved. I can then open Chrome and log back in and work normally. I could be mistaken about the connection, but that's been my feeling for a long time.

Also I think the above solution works more consistently with Chrome than FF. I have been using Chrome more and more for both work and casual browsing.

It's silly but damn is it annoying. Big shame that it persists in CS5. Can I get a big WTF?

[mmcvicar]

I was having the same issue with the space bar shortcut not working in Illustrator CS4 and I used Activity Monitor to quit the program "RealPlayer Downloader". That fixed the problem once I restarted Illustrator, but I haven't been able to recreate that issue, so it might just be general interference from other applications that causes this problem. Good Luck!

[autacraft]

I cant remember the past bugs of CS3/4 or if they had this functionality, but on CS5 you can check the status of keyboard commands and shortcuts but going to your file bar then EDIT....KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS.

This will display a complete list of assigned (either default or set) tools and menu command shortcuts - you can also re-set to default.

I'm posting this, because if previous versions do have that function its a good way to accertain if its a fault within Illustrator or an other app conflict i.e - if illustrator shows that you have 'spacebar' enabled for dragging and it isnt working, then chances are its conflicting with another app, if it displays that spacebar isnt assigned for dragging, assign it again and see what happens!

Cheers

[lennoxcs]

As soon as i quit firefox, everything worked again!

[markd61]

Thank you Jag-Mac-2010!

Yeah this is an older thread but it has the answer.

That is exactly what was causing my problem in Photoshop CS5.

I had switched to Chrome and I did have a couple of windows open. Closing them but not quitting Chrome solved the problem.

[droon]

Same here with illustrator cs5 and the new firefox 4.
I quit firefox and fixed it was.

It has to be something in osx that's set up stupidly.

[ladySubrosa]

I am just coming in here to confirm that it has to be some kind of website related thing. Closing Basecamp specifically fixed this issue for me. So, for someone else it was Mint.com. Be mindful of websites like that that may use flash or javascript in a way that overrides your keyboard function.

[slazareth]

For me it was youtube.com causing the issue. Regardless of site I'm pretty sure this is a flash issue. My guess is that it happens mostly with flash video as flash video usually has a keyboard shortcut of spacebar to play/pause video.

[MacPhyle]

I was having the same issue. VERY frustrating. After reading this thread I noticed that I, too had Firefox opened (same as ox4dboy). So I quit firefox and my keyboard shortcuts were back! Seems like a pretty obscure bug.

It was Google Chrome for me, but thanks for the info - relaunching Chrome did the trick!

[oNo]

For me, messing with the 'Screensharing' caused the whole issue. Running 'Applejack' solved it.
Thx for all the input

[xocasil]

I was having the same issue. VERY frustrating. After reading this thread I noticed that I, too had Firefox opened (same as ox4dboy). So I quit firefox and my keyboard shortcuts were back! Seems like a pretty obscure bug.

When I closed out FireFox, everything started working again.

[anthonycollini]

Quitting firefox fixed the issue for me.

[will-s-t]

Quitting Word worked for me. Evil program...

[kemo]

weird, quitting Chrome did the trick for me, does it use some shared components... ?