Happening everywhere, Chrome, Firefox, Textedit, etc.
Some troubleshooting ideas:
- Before using the macro, "Cancel All Macros" in the KM Status menu
- Check the Mac "Activity Monitor" app to see if there are any apps/processes using excessive CPU.
- Try the typed string macro in an app you know responds well, like BBEdit or TextWrangler.
- Restart the KM Engine
- If all else fails, restart your Mac.
You can also check the Troubleshooting [Keyboard Maestro Wiki] article. I didn't see anything relevant, but maybe you might spot something.
Good luck, and let us know how it goes.
Hm, it’s been a few days now.
So Macbook Pro has restarted > 5 times now.
Tried closing a lot of apps.
Still no go.
I mean, I remembered stumbling upon this issue 1st time using Keyboard
Maestro.
Then I messed around with the Set Action Delay (between actions) and
setting it to 0.02 seconds and that solves things.
But ever since I created a new macro few days ago, this “slow” problem
appears, until now.
I did try disabling/deleting that last macro I created, still same.
So not sure what triggered the “slowness”.
The Set Action Delay action can permanently set the typing speed delay if you have (mis)used that action.
So, for all of the newer users following this thread, how do we reset/clear the "Set Action Delay" to normal/default?
The Set Action Delay action only affects 1 macro right?
But it seems like ALL of my macros are affected.
Use the "Reset" option to clear any settings back to the defaults.
Use the "for this macro" or "permanently" as appropriate.
1 Like
Ok, so I have a bunch of these
Set Action Delay - between actions (permanently)
for 1 macro or 1 group inside the 1 macro…
Was thinking between actions (permanently) works only for 1 macro or 1
group.
Does this mean they collectively cause the unnecessary “slowness”?
OR
Maybe I had mistakenly set too big of a delay like 0.5 second somewhere in
some Macros (I have close to 100 Macros now)
Not sure which Macro has
Set Action Delay - between actions (permanently) = 0.5 seconds
that’s causing the “slowness”?
And I had created a brand new macro only containing this single action:
But both did not work.
Slowness still persists.
OMG, just stumbled upon this
https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/action/Wait_For_Google_Chrome_to_Finish_Loading
Solved all my "browser breaking macros" issues.
PS: But I've yet to rectify the all-text-related "slowness" issue. Only
when it involves the keyboard input, it slowssssss.
Other macros like point and click are totally fine.
I don’t know all the details, but from my understanding, “Set Action Delay” sounds like what we’d want to use, but it doesn’t do what we think it does. From everything I’ve read and tried, it’s best not to use “Set Action Delay” at all.
Usually what we really want is a delay between actions, and in that case, we should use the “Pause” action (or some other means of determining when it’s OK to continue).
Yes, as a general rule, you should never use Set Action Delay.
You almost certainly should never use Set Action Delay “permanently”.
But some people insist that permanently slowing down Keyboard Maestro is the solution to some problems, so the action exists despite my best judgement.
In this case, there is no reason to do anything “permanently” since it is specific to this macro.
And there is a difference between the types of delays it sets - typing delays is different to inter-action delays.
Well, here I am, going through each macro painfully, removing any
unnecessary
Set Action Delay actions
and replacing them with Pause / Wait For Chrome To Finish Loading / Pause
Until.
1 Like
I have this problem on one of my macros. The problem started in the past couple of weeks after the macro had worked fine previously.
But I’m confused about your solution. Where is the ‘Reset Between Actions Delay Globally’ action? I have looked through all the the actions available to me when editing the macro and cannot find it. If I search for “Reset” in all macro actions I only see “Reset Google Chrome Form” Reset Safari Form" and “Semaphore Reset”.
What kind of magic juju am I missing?
Okay, so now I found the action. It is actually “Set Action Delay” and then you modify the action when you place it in the macro.
However, neither of these choices appear to have a consistent effect. I am using “insert text by typing” and do no text processing. I am inserting a string of eight characters. If I modify the macro, the first time I run it the delay after the first character is about three seconds. Then a burst of four characters come out quickly (probably the .15 second delay specified in the “Reset” command (I can’t figure out how to change this parameter). Then the final characters are delayed 2-3 seconds between them.
On the second and subsequent runs of the macro, the text is sent one character, then a delay of 2-3 seconds. The entire macro, which is two actions plus the string entry, takes more than 25 seconds. Not particularly a time saver.
right now, for me, new macros that use “insert text by typing” are useless, even if I try to set various delays to small values within the macro or elsewhere. I have only three ‘homemade’ macros at this time. One of them, made a long time ago, works find and inserts text by typing. New macros do not. None of my macros use
I think I’ll try uninstalling, restarting the machine (27" iMac late 2013) then reinstalling.
Bah!
I've been through your frustrations.
Now I do NOT use the
Set/Reset Between Actions Delay Globally/Permanently
action in any new Macros I create.
I only use these actions:
Pause
Pause Until (Found Image Condition is really good, you screenshot a
reference point snippet and drag it into the small box)
Pause Until (Pixel Condition)
Wait For Google Chrome to Finish Loading
NOTE: Pause Until is so consistent, but takes a longer time to create.
The whole reason for these delays is certain Macros only work with them.
As if mash up of all software n browsers do NOT work together when there's
no delay.
Simplest example is a webpage on a browser has to finish loading first,
therefore the needed delay.
Agreed. Sigh. I wish there was a way to convince people to leave these actions alone, but people (myself included at one time) don't ever seem to listen. I guess we all have to learn the hard way (again, myself included).
