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BetterTouchTool seems to be preventing text expansion by locking secure entry


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@johanalfred This issue occurs when an app enables secure input in macOS (e.g. to give you the ability to type into a password field or other private field without other apps being able to monitor your keypresses for the purposes of snippet text expansion), but the app doesn't release it properly when it's done.

 

If you're unable to expand your snippet, first, try re-launching the appropriate app.


If the issue occurs again/frequently and BTT keeps showing up there, you may benefit from contacting them as they may have recently changed something where it doesn't release secure entry as it should.

 

Cheers,
Vero

 

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@johanalfred You'll have to do some detective work on your own Mac.


The error message usually makes it easy to identify which application has locked secure input. If Alfred reports that "loginwindow (or a random process number) seems to be preventing text expansion by locking secure input", it's likely that macOS is unable to tell which application is using secure input.


This can be because macOS itself has left the secure input enabled (e.g. when you've recently logged into your Mac, or after waking your computer and typing your password). This can be resolved by restarting your Mac, or logging out fully and logging back in.

 

Try launching a minimum number of apps/services on your Mac, and re-launching apps one by one, allowing you to establish which app or service is locking secure input by process of elimination. Note that browser plugins (e.g. password managers like Bitwarden and LastPass) can be the cause, so enable plugins one at a time to test them.

 

Cheers,
Vero

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1 hour ago, Vero said:

This can be because macOS itself has left the secure input enabled (e.g. when you've recently logged into your Mac, or after waking your computer and typing your password). This can be resolved by restarting your Mac, or logging out fully and logging back in.

Just in passing, it's always worth trying locking and unlocking again. There seems to be some sort of bug (which I reported to Apple over 18 months ago) which effectively disables text expansion (e.g., in Typinator) sometimes (but not always) when you unlock a MacBook Pro using an Apple Watch. The bug also prevents long press working to produce accented alternatives for a specific key (which is what I reported to Apple in order to avoid the suggestion the problem was limited to some third party app 😉). That resolves if you lock and then unlock with touch ID.

 

Apologies for being a little off-topic.

 

Stephen

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48 minutes ago, Stephen_C said:

which is what I reported to Apple in order to avoid the suggestion the problem was limited to some third party app

 

Oh, how wise you are :) They really do use any excuse to avoid looking at the underlying issue and push back to being a third-party's fault...

 

49 minutes ago, Stephen_C said:

There seems to be some sort of bug (which I reported to Apple over 18 months ago) which effectively disables text expansion (e.g., in Typinator) sometimes (but not always) when you unlock a MacBook Pro using an Apple Watch.

 

It's the first time I hear of this, but it's very interesting! I'll keep in mind the alternative "test" (the accented characters via long press) for users encountering that issue. 

 

Maybe ever so slightly off-topic but very useful. Much appreciated. :)

 

Cheers,
Vero

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