Expose, Spotlight, Spaces not responding to keyboard shortcuts

[triddent222]

Hi all, I glanced over the forums but didn't find any similar issues. Basically, Expose, Spotlight and spaces won't respond to any keyboard shortcuts (ie. Pressing F12 doesn't bring up the Dashboard, pressing Fn+F8, F9, F10 doesn't work, F11 won't hide all the windows, Command+Space bar won't invoke the Spotlight search bar, etc).
What's really interesting about it is, all of these features are apparently working correctly (ie. Clicking directly on the Spotlight icon will bring up the search bar, using an active corner will perform its Expose function, etc).


Any guesses as to what's happening ?

 

[r76h23h78]

Can you provide us with some more info.

What type of Mac?
When did you buy it?
Did you recently reinstall Tiger/Leopard?

 

[joseph2166]

Maybe try checking that the shortcuts are turned on in the Keyboard/Mouse System Preferences? There's a tab where you can tick on/off lots of shortcuts (and change them and add new ones).

 

[eXan]

The shortcut settings might have dropped. Try re-assigning them.

Happened to me a couple of times.

 

[triddent222]

Can you provide us with some more info.

What type of Mac?
When did you buy it?
Did you recently reinstall Tiger/Leopard?

SR MacBook Pro 2.2 (Base model).
August, 2007
Installed Leopard back in October, no recent hardware/software changes.

Maybe try checking that the shortcuts are turned on in the Keyboard/Mouse System Preferences? There's a tab where you can tick on/off lots of shortcuts (and change them and add new ones).

They're (were*) all assigned correctly, and, as I mentioned in my original post, Active Corners are (were*) still working with no problem.


-----

*Resetting the PRAM (NVRAM) apparently fixed my issue. Will post back if it happens again.

 

[rthesaint]

hi.

i'm facing the same problem but i'm still not able to solve.
tough, the problem only occurs when i'm using my mac with dual displays.

i have a:
MacBook 13" Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 2GB RAM 160GB HDD
External LG W2252TQ with DVI-miniDVI adapter.
Bluetooth Mighty Mouse
USB Aluminum Keyboard (though it "breaks" with or without BT mouse and USB keyboard)
Mac OS X 10.5.4 with FULLY updated.

if anyone knows why, please reply.

Thanks a lot!

 

[seafrog]

same issue, dual screen - keyboard shortcuts not working

hi.

i'm facing the same problem but i'm still not able to solve.
tough, the problem only occurs when i'm using my mac with dual displays.

I am facing the same problem. when my Mac Pro boots up, the KBD shortcuts work fine. Once I turn on the dual screen, i lose them. If I turn Off the dual screen, the problem still continues.

I lose my spotlight, expose, spaces keyboard shortcuts but i can still use them with my mouse. i will try the apple forums to see if they can help.

My system
Mac Pro 2008 with 8800gt
no new hardware cards, just some ext hard drives
latest leopard

thanks

 

[Schmoe0013]

system pref-> keyboard -> fn keys?

Not sure, that's odd~

 

[rthesaint]

i found that my screen saver was breaking it.
i changed the screensaver to one of leopard's default and everything worked fine.

 

[seafrog]

Thanks rthesaint. it worked

I changed my screensaver from 3rd party to default ones and had to reboot. It seems to work now (even after changing display from mirror to span).

Thanks for the input.

 

[Schmoe0013]

Good update.. That is a very weird problem, and glad to see it was resolved.

 

[SimD]

Happens to me after I run World of Warcraft..

 

[e12a]

have you tried a restart?

i've had this happen a few times. Restartin fixed it.

 

[rthesaint]

have you tried a restart?

i've had this happen a few times. Restartin fixed it.

that's not the only point, 'cause a restart may fix the problem by now, but you will face it again later.

the screensaver problem is that, some screensavers that are not fully Leopard compatible crashes an app called something like ScreenSaverStarted (you may open ActivityMonitor and see in red which one is not responding) and with this app crashed you cannot run your screensaver back and it 'causes the other apps that have some "connection" to it to stop responding - in this case Dashboard, Expose and Spaces.

 

[absurdio]

Me too...

Wow, what a pain. I too have been using an external monitor hooked up to an MBP. And, here ,too, that didn't cause me any problems until I started using some third party screensavers.(I was using RandomExtra so that I could run PolarClock and FLIQLO on separate monitors). I'm not sure which of those caused it, but, sure enough, after a while, expose and spaces would just stop responding. Quite a pain.

I guess it's not a big deal to just give up on the screensavers...but...they look awfully nice, especially in tandem.

*Sigh* This is the kind of inexplicable annoyance that made me dislike Windows...

[Edit: Any of you with the same problem using the same screen savers I am? Can we narrow down what's causing that screensaver glitch?
Also props to rthesaint for having figured this out perfectly.]

 

[se6git]

I had a problem with Spaces not responding to short cuts for spaces 5 and 6. 1 to 4 worked fine and I could access 5 and 6, just not via ctrl - 5 or ctrl- 6.
Turning Spaces off and then on again solved the problem.
This occurred after a Quicktime update forced a restart. The whole system seemed a little out of sorts for a while.

 

[kkamin]

I'm having the same problem with my spaces shortcuts, dashboard, screen capture not working after a while. It is fine when I reboot the system. I am not running a 3rd party screen saver or anything. This didn't start happening until a month ago so I am wondering if it is a bug in the latest version of Leopard 10.5.7? Recently installed Little Snitch, is that a possibility?

Macbook 2 GHz
using dual monitors

 

[Elrond39]

It's happening to me, as well. I think PolarClock is the culprit in my case, but it's a wonderful screensaver - whatever can we do?

 

[rthesaint]

It's happening to me, as well. I think PolarClock is the culprit in my case, but it's a wonderful screensaver - whatever can we do?

That's exactly the screensaver I was using when the problem occurred. I didn't want to bother the developer, so I just changed my screensaver. Yeah, I know... Big loss.