Keyboard Shortcuts - Show spotlight window

[andyroo731]

Previously, when I used Leopard on my iMac, I had assigned F17 as my shortcut for "show spotlight window". Since upgrading to Snow Leopard, whenever I hit F17 for "show spotlight window" I only receiving an error 'beep'

I've tried reassigning it to a different key or combination of keys and it still doesn't work. If I assign a different keyboard shortcut to F17, it works no problem, so the problem is with the "show spotlight window" and not the key I've assigned to it. As well, I also upgraded my MacBook to Snow Leopard as well. The key I had assigned for it to open "show spotlight window" (Fn F2) works the same as ever. I tried comparing all of the keyboard shortcuts between the two computers and making sure they work. Everything works fine except for the "show spotlight window" on the iMac. There is nothing else assigned to that key so I know that that's not the problem.

I've searched the Internet to see if others have had a similar problem but I seem to be along on this one.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Gregg2]

com.apple.spotlight.plist

Find the above file in your Home>Library>Preferences folder
Drag it to your Desktop
Open Spotlight briefly
Try to assign your keyboard shortcut

Did it work?

 

[andyroo731]

Thanks for your suggestion.
The file I could find in the preferences folder was com.apple.spotlight.plist
I tried dragging it to the desktop and assigning a key to 'show spotlight window' but received the same error 'beep'.
Was this the correct file to drag to the desktop?

 

[Gregg2]

Well, it's correct as far as my suggestion. Apparently it's not correct as far as finding the culprit. Did that mess up anything else in Spotlight? (if you customized anything, it was reset) If so, you can drag that file back from the Desktop to it's original folder. It will prompt you to overwrite the one that should have been created with the factory default settings.

The only plist file that relates to the keyboard is com.apple.KeyboardViewerServer.plist I don't know what settings that controls. But, if you do the same drill, you can always restore the "original" if you want to.

Seems like this isn't going to be the answer though. You should be able to set a keyboard shortcut! I'm not sure what else might correct this. But, out of the box, it should be possible. That would imply that reinstalling the OS would fix it, but that seems drastic at this point.

Can you visit an Apple Store? If so, try some display units. They should have shortcuts set, and you can see if it seems to be possible to edit them. You could also take your Mac in and see if a Genius Bar guru can help.