I have “open at login” selected for KM in the Finder, but suddenly it doesn’t open. This is also true of some other apps, but it’s lack of KM that has me in pain.
I don’t know what caused this, just that one day I re-started and it was no longer there. I don’t know how to get at system events to see what happened. I tried going /System/Library/CoreServices/ and clicking on it.
So, an aside question, how can I view System Events?
Main questions: What happened? How can I re-enable Open at Login?
Launch Engine at Login in the General tab of Keyboard Maestro’s preferences is the setting.
I don’t know what you hope to accomplish with System Events. It’s an application interface for AppleScript.
You cannot view System Events. You can view its AppleScript dictionary (sdef) using Script Editor.app. Select Open Dictionary from the File menu, wait while the dialog populates, then select System Events — a dictionary viewer window will open.
The place you do want to look is in the Login Items pane of your user in the Users & Groups system preferences.
If the Keyboard Maestro Engine is not there or is broken you have a clue to what’s going on.
The general troubleshooting steps I’d take are:
Make sure the KM Editor and KM Engine are in the Accessibility pane of System Prefs > Security & Privacy > Privacy preferences. If not then you may have found your problem. If so then:
A) Delete the Keyboard Maestro Engine from Login Items.
B) Turn OFF Launch Engine at Login in the KM prefs.
C) Quit the KM engine and quit and restart the KM Editor.
D) Turn ON Launch Engine at Login in the KM prefs.
E) See if the Keyboard Maestro Engine is back in Login Items.
F) If E is true then reboot the machine and see if all works correctly.
If things still aren’t working correctly I’d reinstall a fresh copy of Keyboard Maestro and run through the troubleshooting steps again.
Note that KM is two programs to the user: the KM Engine, and the KM editor. The engine runs in the background, and executes macros. The KM editor runs in a regular window and lets you write, edit, and organize KM macros.
You can have both open automatically at log-in. As Chris points out, these show on your User account page (“ ▹ System Preferences ▹ Users & Groups ▹ User ▹ Login Items”). In that list, the KM engine shows as “Keyboard Maestro Engine”; the editor shows as “Keyboard Maestro”.
You should, of course, have the KM engine open at log-in in order to run macros. Whether or not to have the OS open the KM editor at log-in is up to you.
Check the Login Items and see what is listed there.
As a general rule you should have either Keyboard Maestro or Keyboard Maestro Engine listed, but not both. Usually just the Keyboard Maestro Engine, but you can have just the Keyboard Maestro editor if desired. If you have both, you can get a case where the Keyboard Maestro editor also launches a copy of the Keyboard Maestro Engine, and if you have two copies of the Keyboard Maestro Engine launching at the same time, they can quit each other leaving none running.
There were reports of the Keyboard Maestro Engine not launching at login in earlier betas of El Capitan, but I could never duplicate that and the reports seem to have stopped in later betas.
I have also seen at least one case where the system was launching two copies of the Keyboard Maestro Engine, and as described above, if you launch two copies, they will each quit the other one.
You can look at the Engine.log (and Editor.log) file after system boot to see what happened. In Keyboard Maestro, select Help ➤ Open Logs Folder to see the logs).
Peter — Might you consider having KM auto-magically remove the Login Item “KM Engine” when “KM” is added as a Log-in Item (and, conversely, adding it when KM is removed as a Login Item) — or some other effective way to prevent having the system launch two mutually-destructive copies of the Engine?
This has never come up for me — I generally launch and close programs as needed, and limit my “open at log-in” to Mail and Messages and helper programs. I added KM to my Login Items only to help trouble-shoot here (KM Engine is always among my Login Items).
THANKS everyone. I deselected Launch at Login for the editor, and the engine now launches upon startup (but not the editor, which is just fine with me).