Dropsafe

by Alec Muffett

Leopard 10.5 Upgrade: Copy Key / Opt-C Has Vanished !!!

So here’s a weirdness:

I upgraded to Leopard. Everything seems fine, except that the “Copy” function no longer works from the keyboard. It’s like the “Option” and “C” keys are not being recognised when pressed at the same time; and I can go further – it actually seems that this exactly the problem.

If you keep the “International” widget in your toolbar, you will know the “Show Keyboard Viewer” widget; I load it up and hold-down the “Option” key. The on-screen key turns grey, in sympathy.

If I tap “V” (Opt-V, Paste) – I can see the on-screen “V” key flicker grey, registering the event.

But Opt-C, not a thing. No flicker, no nothing.

So: The “C” key works, the “Opt” key works, but “Opt-C” fails, yet “Opt-V” works.

My bet? Something is swallowing the event at a very low level. I can “Copy” using the menu, but it is not the same…

Advice, anyone, please?

⊞

Comments

8 responses to “Leopard 10.5 Upgrade: Copy Key / Opt-C Has Vanished !!!”

  1. diamond

    Works fine for me, but I don’t use the “international” widget.

    Reply
  2. Geoff Arnold

    I’m puzzled. The standard copy and paste are cmd-C/cmd-V, not option-C/option-V.

    Option-C is used to enter the lower case c-cedilla.

    Reply
  3. Stephen Usher

    Erm, I don’t have a problem on my iBook G4, at least in all programs except X11 (there’s a known problem with cut & paste with the prematurely released X11R7 server).

    This was both before and after installing 10.5.1 last night.

    However, searching the forums, this might be of interest:

    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1221984&tstart=60

    Reply
  4. alecm

    @Geoff – I forgot which way round they were named. Cloverleaf-C is a bit long to type… 🙂

    Reply
  5. Katz

    cmd+c works for me… cmd+v, etc… then again, I’m US-keyboard w/o widgets. In fact, I disable Dashboard.

    Reply
  6. Melodie Neal

    I upgraded two machines the weekend Leopard was released, and I’m not seeing this problem. Are you having issues with your laptop’s keyboard, or on an external keyboard? Recognition of some third party keyboards can be a bit vexed, I’ve seen a few reports of trouble.

    Have you tried System Prefs – Keyboard – Modifier Keys, and does the content of the dialog look sane?

    Poking about, I notice that I have no files in $Home/Library/Keyboard Layouts, which I think means I am using the default settings (otherwise I should have a blob of XML in there, that being the language of choice for everything including laundry lists these days). If you have a file in that directory, you may have some old keyboard mappings hanging about.

    Last resort: hunt up the Ukelele keyboard layout editor, and see if it sheds any light on the problem.

    rgds

    Melodie (still waiting for Furl to waken from its slumber)

    Reply
  7. alecm

    YAY! FIXED!

    Melodie put me on the right track; I was experimenting and heard my Mac make an “Urk” noise once when I hit Cmd-C; trawled through Preferences and found that the keystroke was bound to “Start Speaking Text” as opposed to the § key which I usually use.

    Must have got mashed in conversion. Thanks everyone for helping sort this out. :-*

    Reply
  8. Bill

    THANK YOU – I have been on the phone with mac for hours. I have been checking every site and you guys fixed my problem. My computer had cmd C keystroke was bound to “Start Speaking Text” just like yours…? Why?

    But it’s fixed!

    Reply

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