Alfred won't show in Monterey after using Secure Entry field [Fixed in 4.6.4 b1291 pre-release]

[OAL]

Today I updated to Monterey.

Neither Alfred nor Clipboard shortcut works after clicking on Password fields on Music app and also on the Bitwarden chrome extension password fields, say when adding a new login infos.

 

Any ideas?

Edited October 26, 2021 by OAL

[Vero]

@OAL By design, Apple stops all third-party apps like Alfred from seeing your keystrokes when you're in a password field in order to protect your privacy. This isn't specific to Monterey and has always been the case.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[OAL]

@Vero No I have never had this behaviour. And I can't open alfred with shortcuts even if I click away from the password field. I have to click open Alfred from the dock.

Edited October 26, 2021 by OAL

[Vero]

@OAL If you encounter the issue where you're unable to expand snippets outside of password fields or specific password-focused apps, please take a look at the Snippets Troubleshooting page:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/snippets/

 

If the above doesn't resolve the issue for you, could you please provide more details?

- In what circumstances do snippets not expand? Does it only happen sometimes or do they never expand? Is there a pattern you can discern in terms which apps it happens in, which snippets you have an issue with, etc?

- Does Alfred's "Secure input" error message appear when you're unable to expand snippets?

 

The more information you're able to provide, the more we'll be able to help. I've been using Snippets daily on Monterey for a few months now and can confirm that they work as expected, so the issue you're seeing will likely not be related to Monterey but could be related to upgrading/reinstalling macOS. 

 

Cheers,
Vero

[OAL]

@Vero It is not about snippets. I am unable to open neither alfred nor clipboard manager with keyboard shortcuts when I click on the password field. And clicking on anything else afterwards (to lose the focus on password field) does not solve the problem. Only after I open Alfred again (by clicking on app icon on the dock) I am able to open and close alfred with cmd+space.

 

 

[deanishe]

Do shortcuts for other applications work? Is it only Alfred that's affected?

[OAL]

13 minutes ago, deanishe said:

Do shortcuts for other applications work? Is it only Alfred that's affected?

@deanishe I have Things 3 that also work through keyboard shortcut ctrl+space, that seems to be working fine.

And as I said I had never experienced such behaviour ever before.

[Vero]

@OAL Apologies for misunderstanding your original issue. It seems only you and one other user have reported this kind of behaviour so far, so it seems likely that another app running is affecting the event stream.

 

Could you take a moment to create a new vanilla user account on your Mac with nothing else installed and see what behaviour you get there?

 

If everything on that new account is working normally, return to your main account, go into the Accessibility preferences and uncheck anything other than Alfred. Do the same with any browser plugins. What behaviour do you see then?

 

If it's all good, try re-adding the accessibility features and browser plugins one by one, and see if you can work out which one is interfering. 

 

I'd be grateful if you could share your findings since, as I said, only a couple of users appear to be affected by this, so it would be helpful to know in case it affects anyone else in the future

 

Cheers,
Vero

[OAL]

@Vero

No problem on vanilla user.

 

Unchecked all apps on accessibility and all chrome extension. Did not help. Even closed all app and apps that work in the background like Better Touch Tool and such.

 

I am also having a weird issue where cmd and alt buttons change places on my logitech k860 keyboard after the restart. And changing the modifier key mapping from keyboard in system settings does not change anything. Only removing and repairing through bluetooth solves it. Weird.

[itabraham]

A similar behavior has been happening for me since I upgraded to MacOS Monterey. However, I don't have issues with password fields, it is actually with two apps, iTerm 2 and the default Terminal app. I made a screen recording here. As per the standard bug reporting requirements:

 

• What you were doing when the issue happened:
  • Updated to MacOS Monterey and was trying to open the Alfred Launcher while an iTerm 2 window was open and active. 
• Whether you were able to replicate it:
  • Yes. Repeatedly. 
• Include any screenshots that might help us:
  • Twitter link above.
• Include the version and build number from Alfred's General preferences (Don't say "latest", please be specific)
  • Alfred 4.6 [1266]
• Include the version and build number from macOS and any apps that are relevant to the issue you're seeing
  • MacOS Monterey 12.0.1. The problem affects Alfred when iTerm 2 or Terminal is open. However similar terminal apps like kitty and Hyper.is do not seem to cause issues. The problem can be resolved by manually clicking “Toggle Alfred” from the menu bar after quitting the offending application at which point, launcher operation resumes behaving as normal. 

Following the instructions above, I can confirm there are no issues on a vanilla user account. However leaving only Alfred on accessibility setting didn't seem to help matters. 

Edited October 28, 2021 by itabraham

[Vero]

3 minutes ago, itabraham said:

Following the instructions above, I can confirm there are no issues on a vanilla user account. However leaving only Alfred on accessibility setting didn't seem to help matters. 

 

This is key; If you run through the same process of opening Terminal or iTerm 2 on a vanilla account, Alfred continues to behave as expected?

[itabraham]

Yes. In a newly created vanilla user account, the Alfred launcher does behave as expected (though, I should point out that is plain Alfred, i.e. without the Powerpack License in use in my usual user account). 

[Vero]

@itabraham Could you activate your Powerpack and essentially replicate the exact steps you do on your main profile that result in Alfred not appearing? Could you open Console.app and see if any particularly interesting error messages appear while doing this?

 

The reason this is key is that if everything Alfred-wise is the same, but that in the vanilla account, you're not running any third-party apps, it would help establish that somewhere on your main profile, something is interfering, perhaps getting in the way of the event thread, stopping Alfred from opening.

 

As another possibility, though unlikely, are you using two screens? Could you check that Alfred isn't appearing on your second screen? In Alfred's Preferences > Appearance > Options, if you have "Show Alfred on" set to anything other than default screen, it's possible that macOS is reporting the second screen as active/mouse screen incorrectly, causing Alfred to appear, but not where you expect him to be.

 

Thanks for taking the time to provide more details  Hopefully we can work out why you and @OAL are seeing this behaviour.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[itabraham]

@Vero For me, the offending setting was Secure Keyboard entry. When I turned this off in both from Terminal > Secure Keyboard Entry as well as iTerm 2 > Secure Keyboard Entry, Alfred's Launcher behavior was restored to normal. Hope this tidbit of information helps. Credit goes to iTerm 2 developers for pointing out that this could be the issue. I had posted this over there as well because I wasn't sure the bug was on Alfred's end or iTerms end. 

 

With regards to the vanilla account, it is possible that this setting is turned off my default for the vanilla user account. Given that the purpose of Secure Keyboard Entry is to prevent key-logging, this mechanism is probably interfering with Alfred's ability to launch. Why this was not an issue in Catalina, I do not know; but the context seems similar (vis-a-vis, losing Alfred after clicking a password box). Probably Monterey upgraded/updated security. 

[itabraham]

Here is console output filtered by the word "alfred" for the case with Secure Keyboard Entry enabled.

 

error	13:02:48.192482-0500	WindowServer	CPS: Denying Alfred the right to be in front because secureTextInput is active and this process doesn't have secure text mode enabled, and this request was not caused by user activity
default	13:02:48.192291-0500	Alfred	SetFrontProcess: asn=0x0-0x18e18e options=1
default	13:02:48.198900-0500	Alfred	SetFrontProcess: asn=0x0-0x18e18e options=1
error	13:02:48.199006-0500	WindowServer	CPS: Denying Alfred the right to be in front because secureTextInput is active and this process doesn't have secure text mode enabled, and this request was not caused by user activity
default	13:02:48.212418-0500	runningboardd	Acquiring assertion targeting [app<application.com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred.86238920.86238961(501)>:2415] from originator [daemon<com.apple.WindowServer(88)>:151] with description <RBSAssertionDescriptor| "AppDrawing" ID:166-151-14073 target:2415 attributes:[
	<RBSDomainAttribute| domain:"com.apple.appnap" name:"AppDrawing" sourceEnvironment:"(null)">,
	<RBSAcquisitionCompletionAttribute| policy:AfterApplication>
	]>
default	13:02:48.212544-0500	runningboardd	Assertion 166-151-14073 (target:[app<application.com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred.86238920.86238961(501)>:2415]) will be created as active
default	13:02:48.213087-0500	runningboardd	[app<application.com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred.86238920.86238961(501)>:2415] Ignoring jetsam update because this process is not memory-managed
default	13:02:48.213115-0500	runningboardd	[app<application.com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred.86238920.86238961(501)>:2415] Ignoring suspend because this process is not lifecycle managed
default	13:02:48.213093-0500	runningboardd	Calculated state for app<application.com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred.86238920.86238961(501)>: running-active (role: UserInteractive)
default	13:02:48.213141-0500	runningboardd	[app<application.com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred.86238920.86238961(501)>:2415] Ignoring GPU update because this process is not GPU managed

 

[Andrew]

@itabraham thanks for this research and investigation, I'll see what I can do to make the WindowServer aware that Alfred was in fact "caused by user activity".

[paul_]

Good day. While my issue _might_ be somewhat unrelated, I'm having a reminiscent issue using Hammerspoon (although I'm also a paying Alfred customer).  I wrote it up here, and I suspect the resolution (if one should be found) might be related. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69970721/on-monterey-while-nssecuretextfield-has-focus-hammerspoon-can-no-longer-bring

 

If it's totally unrelated, I apologise for the spam.

Edited November 15, 2021 by paul_
Clarify that there isn't _yet_ a resolution

[Stephen_C]

@paul_it may possibly help to refer to this earlier post of mine (although, of course, I don't know if that would be a partial solution to your problem).

 

Stephen

[deanishe]

6 hours ago, paul_ said:

While my issue _might_ be somewhat unrelated

 

Sounds like it's the same problem. Perhaps Apple has changed something in the way Secure Input works?

[godbout]

i'm having somehow a similar issue since i've updated to Monterey. my global shortcut for Alfred stops working and Alfred doesn't toggle. toggling from the menu bar though doesn't help either. quitting sometimes does sometimes not. if nothing works then i reset the global shortcut in the settings and i'm good for a couple of hours.

 

probably my summary makes no sense but that's the best i can get from now. will update once i have some more precise.

[fonginator]

3 minutes ago, godbout said:

i'm having somehow a similar issue since i've updated to Monterey. my global shortcut for Alfred stops working and Alfred doesn't toggle. toggling from the menu bar though doesn't help either. quitting sometimes does sometimes not. if nothing works then i reset the global shortcut in the settings and i'm good for a couple of hours.

 

This has been happening to me with increasing frequency over the past few days. When it does, I use Spotlight to activate Alfred, quit then re-launch it and everything is back to normal again for a while.

 

[Vero]

@godbout @fonginator Sounds like there's a hotkey conflict. Please check your Spotlight hotkey, which was likely reset to cmd + space by macOS on upgrade to Monterey. This would result in the exact behaviour you're seeing.

 

Also, as you're likely both using multiple languages, check that it's not being used by the language switching or the Siri "hold Cmd Space to speak" feature.

 

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/cmd-space/

 

Cheers,
Vero

[fonginator]

2 minutes ago, Vero said:

@godbout @fonginator Sounds like there's a hotkey conflict. Please check your Spotlight hotkey, which was likely reset to cmd + space by macOS on upgrade to Monterey. This would result in the exact behaviour you're seeing.

 

Also, as you're likely both using multiple languages, check that it's not being used by the language switching or the Siri "hold Cmd Space to speak" feature.

 

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/cmd-space/

 

Cheers,
Vero

 

Hi Vero,

 

My hotkey is Control-Space and has been like that since I installed Alfred many moons ago so I don't believe this applies to me. Rather, I believe this issue is related to the main problem I've been having since upgrading to Monterey which is that Alfred's hotkey will eventually stop working. I originally had to disable Secure Keyboard Input in iTerm2 to even get Alfred to trigger but even with that setting turned off, Alfred still eventually stops responding to my global hotkey.

 

 

[godbout]

spotlight off for me, and nothing with language input either. like @fonginator, my global shortcut works well until it doesn't. then even toggling Alfred from the menu bar doesn't work. somehow it feels like it's toggling, but invisible? also Alfred crashes quite regularly, but that's another story. sorry just dropping by, still haven't had the time to see any pattern yet.

[godbout]

ok i've made a video but too big for here. not sure my issue is ALWAYS this case, but it's a case. when i'm in fullscreen on an app, Alfred shows on the Desktop rather than on top of my current fullscreen app. i'm using a MBP in clamshell mode.