Global palette migrates spontaneously

Hello,
I normally have the global palette in the bottom right of my screen. For some reason, it now spontaneously migrates to the top right corner, despite restarting KBM, multiple computer reboots, etc
I can’t figure out how to troubleshoot this problem.
thanks very much !

The palette should retain it’s position (obviously).

If its new position is retained, then move it where you want and try again.

I suggest you move it to the middle of the screen, and then quit and relaunch the Keyboard Maestro Engine (File ➤ Quit Engine, File ➤ Launch Engine).

If it will not retain its new position, then most likely your preference file is corrupt or has the wrong ownership or permissions. Specifically the file:

~/Library/Preferences/com.stairways.keyboardmaestro.engine.plist

Quit the Keyboard Maestro Engine, trash that file, and relaunch the Keyboard Maestro Engine. You will lose some basic preferences, like window positions, but generally nothing that is overly important.

If it retains its window position in the middle of the screen, but not on the edge, then it might be an issue with the visible area of the screen, perhaps because of the Dock placement.

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I did both procedures and the problem remains.
Nothing else has changed with my computer.
Until I find a solution, I will just have to live with it.
Strange!
thanks for your suggestion Peter. I understand that it must be something local in my system

Is this in 10.13 High Sierra. I just read elsewhere “There is a bug in 10.13 in which settings are being lost across application quit/relaunch”.

This could potentially be the issue…

No, it is the latest Sierra 10.12.6 and the problem did not follow an update. thanks again
The dock is as usual, and has small icons.

I did some more testing. I still cannot find the cause.

I determined when the palette migrates: when I fly the mouse over the palette, it opens, and when it closes it has migrated from anywhere on the screen to the top of the screen straight above.

Gestures, perhaps? Maybe not as a trigger but as a System Preference? (I do this to myself all the time).

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When the palette grows/shrinks, it is designed to keep the center unmoved, but also to stay on the screen.

So for example, if I hover over it so it expands, and the drag it to the bottom left corner so only a small amount is showing, then it will zoom to an icon in the bottom left corner, and when expanded, it will stay in the bottom left corner as it expands up and right.

It sounds like Keyboard Maestro is confused by the visible screen area for some reason.

Simple things to try would be to check what Keyboard Maestro things is SCREENCOUNT(), and the Screen and ScreenVisible tokens for the various screens.

Also, perhaps look at your Display preferences.

Also, perhaps restart your Mac.

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thanks for your suggestion. I tried to no avail.

Thanks very much Peter. I will look into all of that.
I don’t know if there is any relation, but shortly after the problem started, I changed sys pref
sys pref ➤ dock ➤ prefer tabs when opening ➤ i changed to always
I only say this because you mentioned the dock previously
I tried restarting, closing windows apps, etc to no avail.

I’d be surprised if that had anything to do with it.

Find out what the SCREENCOUNT() function returns, and what the various values of the Screen and ScreenVisible tokens return, and see if they are sensible.

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I did the testing: all 3 ScreenCount(), screen() and ScreenVisible are NOT 1.
Where to go from there, I have no clue.
I have one display (ie screen): IMAC Retina. Sys Pref ➤ display shows not indication of multiple displays (no 'arrangement' tab)
thanks very much, Peter

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Do you have more than one screen? If so, what does the System Preferences, Arrangement look like?

What is the output of this macro:

Dump Screens.kmmacros (3.1 KB)

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I have only 1 screen.

As per snapshot above, there is no arrangement tab in sys pref ➤ display.

Output of your dump screens macro:
Screens: 1
Screen 1 is 0,0,2560,1440 (visible 0,23,2560,1347)

thanks again

Well, that looks fine, so I don’t know why it would be having a problem.

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For what it’s worth, I’ve also experienced occasional migration (though with prompts like Prompt With List and Trigger Macro by Name, not palettes) where a prompt that is normally positioned in the middle, maybe 400 pixels or so from the top of the screen, spontaneously moves to the bottom-left corner, to the point that the left half of the prompt is offscreen and I can’t even see what it says. Fortunately, I’ve been able to fix this by bringing the KM editor to the foreground and triggering a prompt-based macro again, without a need to even restart the KM engine, but I haven’t noticed any reason as to why or even when it happens in the first place. Like @ronald, I’m experiencing this on a 27" iMac with only one display, and your Dump Screens macro returns results that are identical to @ronald’s. I’ll report back if I see this happening again and am able to find out something new, but for now I’m afraid I can’t be of more help other than to say this behavior doesn’t seem to be an isolated instance or limited to palettes.

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thanks

thank you very much. I have the vague impression that the problem could have started following the latest sierra update. thanks again very much for your comment

You’re quite welcome. For what it’s worth, I’ve been running High Sierra since its release, so assuming we’re both running into the same issue, it would appear to not be limited to Sierra.

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