Help me find what is blocking SecureInput!

[klinquist]

New Macbook, did a time machine restore from old Macbook.  OS X 10.12.3.

 

A random startup process is keeping SecureInput enabled, preventing Alfred from being able to do text expansion.  I've followed everything I can find online, including this:

https://smilesoftware.com/textexpander/secureinput

 

Alfred tells me <X> is blocking Secure Input,  and X= one of many RANDOM processes that start on boot.  Sometimes it's loginWindow.  Sometimes it's something silly like 'Forecast bar.'  Most of the time, it's just PID X,   where PID X is not running!

 

I see the same results when I run 

Quote

ioreg -l -w 0 | grep SecureInput

 

...A process ID that is not running.  Something that likely was running on boot.

 

I've tried disabling everything I can on boot, pressing the Login icon instead of 'enter' after typing my screen saver/login password - everything!

 

Any other suggestions?

 

[Vero]

@klinquist Welcome to the forum

 

Have the snippets worked for you at one stage? Do they work upon restart until something locks secure input?

 

Just a few ideas of what to try:

- Are you running any browser plugins or accessibility apps[1] that could be using secure input and failing to release it? When it next happens, quit running apps one by one to see at which point it's released.

- You could also try setting up a temporary second account on your Mac and using snippets there for a little while, to see whether everything works as expected on your second profile?

 

[1] To see the list of apps that have Accessibility permissions, launch System Preferences to Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility.

 

Cheers,

Vero

[deanishe]

Sounds like you may have a buggy program that isn't releasing Secure Input when it quits.

 

If I were you, I'd remove my Login Items and disable Run-at-load Launch Agents, then turn them back on a few at a time to try to find the culprit.

 

If the guilty process has always exited, you could narrow down the list of suspects first by comparing your Login Items & Launch Agents with running processes.