![]() Of course, I cannot remember exactly when the problem started, but it’s definitely been in the past couple of months, so I suspect one of the more recent OS X updates. For some reason, if I don’t check the dialog right away, Typinator ends up losing track of who the culprit app is, and becomes unhelpful by blaming another app that has nothing to do with it. ![]() And sure enough, if I go to the Typinator alert about SKM right after this happens, the dialog actually correctly identifies the background process called loginwindow as the culprit. Sometimes, on my machine at least, after I enter the password requested by OS X upon waking the machine, and OS X logs me in, it fails to switch back out of SKM. And then as soon as I entered my password, the sound indicating that SKM was off would play as well.Įxcept that sometimes it did not. When I woke my machine in the morning, the special sound would play immediately. (It’s configured to ask for my password after it’s been put to sleep.) But it also made me realize that there was one other context where SKM was turned on that I had not thought of: the login window when I woke my computer from sleep. This worked great, in that it clearly indicated to me whenever SKM was turned on and then back off. They also ended up adding a bit of code to Typinator for me that would cause it to play a special sound whenever SKM was turned on, and a different sound whenever it was turned off. Since Ergonis thought that 1Password was a prime candidate, they even contacted the Agile Software developers themselves in order to discuss the situation. The different icon that Typinator uses in the menu bar is not that noticeable, and I was not in the habit of keeping an eye on it constantly to determine exactly when it would change. Typically, I would wake my machine in the morning, start working, and then notice that something was wrong when I tried to use one of my Keyboard Maestro macros or Typinator features. I explained that I had not been able to identify a culprit. They were quite helpful, but still insisted that there was some other app causing this problem. So I contacted the tech support service at Ergonis, the software company that produces Typinator. Nothing helps but a complete restart of the machine, which clears the problem.Īfter this happened to me a few times over the course of a couple of weeks, I decided that I had to try and do something about it. I try quitting and relaunching Typinator itself, to no avail. So I try quitting other likely culprits, including Firefox, 1Password, etc. The problem is that, after I quit Safari, the problem does not go away. In this particular case, it tells me it’s Safari. Typinator tries to help by telling you who the culprit likely is. As the Typinator dialog box explains, the normal trick to fix this situation is to quit the parent app of the password field that switched SKM on in the first place. As soon as you enter your password and press Return to exit the password field, OS X switches out of SKM. Normally, the switching in and out of SKM is handled automatically by OS X. The dots indicate that OS X is stuck in Secure Keyboard Mode (SKM). What does this alternate icon with the dots mean? Well, a click on the Typinator menu provides the answer: The Typinator icon in the menu bar normally looks like this: Upon careful examination of my user interface, I notice this on the right-hand side of my menu bar: Sometimes - usually in the morning, after I wake my machine from sleep and start working - I notice that my Keyboard Maestro macros and Typinator features do not work properly. Recently, I have noticed a new problem on my Mac Pro running OS X 10.9.5. The usability of these fantastic apps is totally dependent on their ability to monitor keyboard input, so secure keyboard mode definitely affects them. I use at least two of these apps myself: Keyboard Maestro and Typinator. However, there are a number of OS X utilities that rely on the ability to monitor your keyboard typing and are therefore affected when OS X switches keyboard input modes like this. In a normal configuration, you don’t really notice when OS X switches from regular keyboard input mode to secure keyboard mode or vice versa, because it’s something that takes place behind the scenes. This mode, called ‘ Secure Keyboard Mode’, is intended to protect your password input from any kind of snooping by other apps, so that your password remains secure. OS X has a special keyboard mode that it switches to whenever the cursor is in a password field (in an OS X dialog, in a web page in Safari, Firefox, in apps that require password input, etc.).
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