I can't get a single macro to launch and can't figure out what's wrong

Questions & Suggestions
1

I cannot figure out how to describe accurately what isn’t working because I am so new to this macro world I find it extremely confusing. It does not seem to be the engine. I know that two months ago the day it stopped working I had for the first time opened the visual pallets and then made them go away. After that I have not been able to get any macro to launch. I’ve restarted my computer with “launch engine at startup” or whatever, I’ve attempted to uninstall and reinstall the product … I don’t know what to do. Can’t get any macro to launch.

When I hit a macro after keying it (say on the demo after re-installing), I get that fail sound like when you try to click somewhere that you aren’t aloud. That little low chirp.

Just have felt too stupid to ask for three months but hell, I’m doing a ton of work in data collection manually that this product could be doing for me if I hadn’t somehow screwed it up.

Any help would be appreciated. I’m not technically incapable, I’m just not technical. Frankly, it’s the first desktop app I think I’ve used in my professional career, used as I am to SaaS. I just don’t have any experience troubleshooting a non web-app and even the way this forum works, and the way support works, is of such a different genre then all the webapps I’m comfortable with.

2

What I need is to know how to defintely absolutely restore original settings. It just feels like somehow it’s been corrupted and I presume this must have something to do with my computer settings since I have restarted and reinstalled. Or maybe I’ve failed to properly reinstall.

Weird to realize how incapable I am of managing an installed instance of something. So it goes.

3

Hi John. Lets get you sorted out. If you have not created any useful macros, then I would suggest you reset everything and then we’ll start from there. This will fix issues like incorrect permissions or ownerships which can happen in cases of migration or otherwise when manually installing things.

Follow these instructions carefully, and if you get stuck anywhere or anything does not work, stop there and report your findings.

So, start by quitting the Keyboard Maestro editor and engine:

  • Launch Keyboard Maestro.app
  • Choose Quit Engine from the File menu
  • Quit Keyboard Maestro

Now delete these folders and files:

~/Library/Application Support/Keyboard Maestro (folder)
~/Library/Preferences/com.stairways.keyboardmaestro.* (three files)

To get to ~/Library, in the Finder, hold the Option key down and select Library from the Go menu.

OK, now you should have a clean slate. Make sure you have Keyboard Maestro 7.1.1 and put it in your /Applications folder (it does not have to live there, but lets keep things simple and standard for now).

Launch Keyboard Maestro and you should have the default macros. Press Control-Tab and verify that the Keyboard Maestro window switcher appears so we know everything is working.

Assuming that works, verify that you can create a macro. Do the Tutorial (Help ➤ Tutorial) and see if you get stuck anywhere there. If it works, at the end you should be able to press the F6 hot key and your home folder should open.

Quit Keyboard Maestro (editor) and relaunch it, and verify that your macro is still there. Your F6 macro should still work.

So, try those steps and see if you have a problem, and if you do we can then look to resolve it. If you do hit a problem, describe the problem and confirm the version of Keyboard Maestro and your OS X that you are using.

4

Thank you a ton. I presume scraping away those files in the ~/library was
the crucial piece. Re-installed 7.2 just now and it’s working, and it’s
going to save me an enormous amount of time.

Sorry for being MIA for 40 days from this response; it’s amazing how
difficult it can be to get myself to return to a thing that makes me feel
incompetent. I really appreciate your help.

John Gilmore
Founder, Spine Software

1 Like
5

OMG, I'm totally there with you. I'd say it's nice to have company, but in this case, I wish it weren't true.

What's really interesting about your post is, you mention feeling comfortable around webapps. As it turns out, one of the things I've been banging my head against is web stuff and Javascript (although I've gotten a lot better), using KM's Custom HTML Prompt action.

So I'll trade you: KM help for your web help. :smile: Just kidding. Kind of. LOL.

When you feel like it, jump into using the Custom HTML Prompt. There's an example in the Library. Window->Macro Library, then scroll down for the Custom HTML Prompt Example.

Once you get the infrastructure stuff down, you'll feel right at home. And if you select the option to run it from a file, you can have your css, js, etc. resource folders also. I've been working on Bootstrap stuff for a while.

Anyway, have fun, and ASK QUESTIONS!!