zeth

I know this is an old thread. But I too am experiencing this - and have been for several years. 

## Example 

If I type my snippet: `url@someclientsname` - then it should expand to the clients URL, such as: www.some-clients-website.com

But every now and then, it doesn't expand.

## My observations and findings 

 - Quickfixes: 95% of the time, it works if I simply delete my snippet and type it again. Sometimes I have to do it twice or three times for it to work. If that doesn't fix it (the 5% of times), then if I CMD+Tab away from the program and then CMD+Tab back into the program, then my snippet works. 

 - Programs: I've seen it happens in all kinds of programs: Chrome, Obsidian, Sublime text, PhpStorm, iTerm, etc. 

  - Memory usage: I have a gut-feeling, that if my computer is under stress (using a lot of memory), that that correlates with the snippets failing to expand. I tried installing iStatistica Pro and looking into the Application Monitor, but I haven't seen clear evidence yet. 

  - Secure input enabled: I also heard the theory about 'Secure input enabled' and went above and beyond to figure out, if that could be an explanation. Conclusion: I'm pretty sure that it isn't. See the elaborated explanation below for more info.

 - Upon login: Whenever I just unlock, open or log in to my computer, sometimes (5-15% of the time), the snippet doesn't expand until I've done the CMD+Tab-trick (see above). 

 - Password Manager (1password): I'm using 1password as my password manager. And there is an increased chance of the snippet failing to expand after I've fetched a password from the "Quick-fetch password"-functionality from 1password (Shortcut: Shift + CMD + \ ). It's about 30-50% of the time, after I've fetched a 1password-password, that the snippets fail. And if it fails, then one of the quickfixes from above will fix it (always).  

 - Safari: Another hunch is that Safari 'hangs on' to Secure Login and keeps it enabled for longer that Chrome. But I can't prove that directly either.  

## Disproving the "Secure input enabled"-theory

I could read this in several places. And even though it does tick a bunch of boxes, my gut-feeling told me, that it wasn't it. 

The problem with proving this, is to see when Secure Login is enabled, since it would entail going to a terminal and writing a command to see if Secure input, was enabled. And to do so, there we be a good chance that while doing so, one of disable Secure Input. 

So I installed a program called TextBar, where I can execute scripts continuously and output the result in my Menu Bar. That way I can, at all times, see if Secure Input is enabled and see which program did it. Here are my two scripts:

Determining if secure input is enabled:

#!/bin/bash

SID=`ioreg -l -w 0 | grep SecureInput`
if [[ "$SID" != '' ]]; then
	echo ' Secure Input is Active '
else
	echo ' Not active '
fi

Determining which program enabled secure input: 

#!/bin/bash

culprit=`ioreg -l -w 0 | grep SecureInput | sed 's/ //g'`
if [ -z "$culprit" ]
then
	echo ' No culprit '
else
	echo " ${culprit:0:20} "
fi

But after having those running every second for months, I cannot see any program causing the problem. Every time a snippet fails, I check my menu bar, to see if Secure Login is the one failing the snippet to expand - and it almost never is. 

Previously I had a feeling that it was related to the login of my computer, that didn't disable Secure Input. And I can see now (with my script), that if I log in, that it keeps the Secure Input enabled for 2-3 seconds, but now consistently Secure Input is being disabled. QED. 🙂 

On 2/1/2022 at 12:41 PM, Vero said:

@zeth Do you have Ctrl checked in Features > Universal Actions > General for "Show Actions"?

 

 

If you uncheck it there, it won't show the Actions list

 

Cheers,
Vero

Oh, my God! Vero... I love you! 

It worked!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! ❤️

Problem description

I still have this problem. With BTT, I have this setup here: https://community.folivora.ai/t/keyboard-shortcuts-conflict-with-alfred/15783 - so CTRL-N emulates down-arrow and CTRL-P emulates up-arrow. 

And CTRL-N does both now: First emulates a down-arrow and then does this weird thing in Alfred, where it goes to 'Show Package Contents'.

Solution Attempt

I can see that it goes to Universal Actions and takes the first one from that list ( Alfred settings >> Features >> Universal Actions >> Actions ). 

But if I untick it, then it don't do it. Ahh! Hope (I thought briefly). So I unticked all Universal Actions, but alas! Then it just list my Workflows, when I press CTRL-N. Grr!

What annoys me the most is that I can't even figure out, what this Shortcut key is supposed to do! It's not listed in the Cheatsheet: https://www.alfredapp.com/help/getting-started/cheatsheet/ . And I can't figure it out myself: List universal actions, if any is defined - if not then list workflows. What is this black magic?!