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Alfred Disappears while typing


mikedvzo

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Since the latest release of Alfred 2 I have been experiencing an issue rather regularly, every other day, where Alfred will disappear while typing into the command line.  I have not been able to narrow it down to a specific workflow or search since it happens intermittently.  When it happens it gets stuck in that situation and after I try to type an argument to a workflow typically it just disappears and I have to re-invoke Alfred  repeatedly until I Quit Alfred and restart and all is good.  

 

- Mike 

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Since the latest release of Alfred 2 I have been experiencing an issue rather regularly, every other day, where Alfred will disappear while typing into the command line.  I have not been able to narrow it down to a specific workflow or search since it happens intermittently.  When it happens it gets stuck in that situation and after I try to type an argument to a workflow typically it just disappears and I have to re-invoke Alfred  repeatedly until I Quit Alfred and restart and all is good.  

 

- Mike 

 

By design, Alfred will hide when another app takes focus, so the only reason Alfred would disappear mid-typing is if another app takes the focus away from him.

 

Have you installed any other apps recently that could be coming into focus without being opened manually? 

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So I have been doing more testing with this and I can definitely observe the behavior and it seems to occur when Terminal is the frontmost application.  I was able to record the behavior and it seems that switching my frontmost application from Terminal fixes the issues and then it remains that way after switching back.  I will continue to gather information but I am pretty certain this is not do to some third party application grabbing focus from Alfred.  

 

If you watch the screencast I am trying to type the word "advice" and it fails after a few characters.

 

http://bit.ly/1MFLXKD

Edited by mikedvzo
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So I have been doing more testing with this and I can definitely observe the behavior and it seems to occur when Terminal is the frontmost application.  I was able to record the behavior and it seems that switching my frontmost application from Terminal fixes the issues and then it remains that way after switching back.  I will continue to gather information but I am pretty certain this is not do to some third party application grabbing focus from Alfred.  

 

If you watch the screencast I am trying to type the word "advice" and it fails after a few characters.

 

http://bit.ly/1MFLXKD

 

Hi Mike,

 

I've had a look at your video, and it very much looks like something else is taking focus away from Alfred, causing him to disappear. I've also been keeping an eye out for any other mentions, and we haven't had any other reports of this kind of behaviour.

 

My recommendation is to update to 2.8 and launch Alfred's prefs to Appearance Options, where you can choose the new "Compatibility mode" under Focusing. This will cause Alfred to behave like an app and take focus when in use, and may resolve your issue.

 

Alternatively, create a new user profile and see whether you're experiencing the same behaviour from a fresh profile with no third-party tools/apps.

 

Cheers,

Vero

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 A little more testing and I am convinced it is not a focus issue but an issue with Alfred.  Here is a screencast and you can see that Alfred will stay in focus indefinitely.   It is only when I type the last character in my workflow match "1" that Alfred disappears.  In addition it disappears if Terminal is frontmost but not if other programs are like Safari.   In the beginning of the video it is working fine but when I switch frontmost App from Terminal to Safari and back to Terminal is when the behavior starts.  Seems to always be related to Terminal which I use all the time.  I have not tried compatibility mode yet as I am still trying to figure out what is going on.  Watch carefully  

 

http://bit.ly/1iwFXqn

 

- Mike

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I was able to test with Compatibility mode and switch back and forth with Standard mode while the problem was occurring and it was confirmed that it only happens in Standard mode.  However that being said in Standard mode everything is fine until I type the last character of the keyword in the workflow and then Alfred disappears and Only when Terminal is the Front most app and after typing input into the Terminal screen.  Now that I know the problem occurs when Terminal is active I can reproduce the problem rather easily.  

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I was hoping there was a way to debug this since it is very annoying.  

 

I've spent the last 30 mins trying in vain to reproduce this with Terminal active in various different states and have been unable to.

 

Have you tried to reproduce this on a second user account?

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Thanks Andrew I am going to try and reproduce in on my other Mac which has a different account and will keep you posted.  It is definitely only happening with Terminal as the frontmost app and Compatibility mode does seem to fix the issue.   The issue is very bizarre as some times I can reproduce it easily like the other day and other times like now I cannot.  

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  • 1 month later...

Still not sure what is the cause of this app but I am certain it only happens when Terminal is the frontmost app. It is bizarre and something in terminal appear to be stealing focus but I am not doing anything unusual in terminal except running shell scripts.  

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  • 2 months later...

I'm not sure what I can add to this thread to help you at this point - I still haven't managed to reproduce it and it's not a widespread (actually quite isolated) issue. Having said that, I'm still keeping aware of this to see if there is something I can do in the future which may circumvent this.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

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  • 3 months later...

FYI - This problem still happens all the time with only Terminal as the front most app.   

 

 

I currently have a ticket open with Apple - this is holistic issue and known bug in OS X which also affects Spotlight.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Andrew glad to know I wasn't crazy.  If there is a bug I will find it

 

 

I'm not sure how high priority Apple will treat this, as it only affects a tiny proportion of their users, and practically no Alfred users. It's in their hands now!

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