The mysterious 'm' key

Questions & Suggestions
1

The 'm' key on my keyboard started playing up. I use it in a few passwords and noticed I was getting password errors. If I retyped it, with emphasis on the 'm', it would work.

Well ok, it was a few years old (Apple extended keyboard) so I bit the bullet and bought a new one - the TouchID was a bonus.

Wouldn't you know it - the 'm' issue persisted on the new keyboard. Took it back to the Apple store, explained the issue, and they swapped it for a new one. SAME THING!!

I disabled KM - that fixed the problem! So I know that there is some macro that has an 'm' in it. I'm not a power user of KM - I mainly have a bunch of text expanders that I have developed over the years.

Any suggestions of how I can find the cause of the problem? I'm okay with wiping everything and starting fresh.

Thanks

Archie

2

In the search box at the top of the editor, try these two searches:

hotkey:m
trigger:m

Hopefully that will reveal the culprit.

-rob.

1 Like
3

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the reply.

hotkey:m shows nothing
trigger:m shows the 20 that have an ‘m’ included in the key trigger

Nothing with an ‘m’ on its own.

I might modify the trigger on some of them to test.

Cheers

Archie

4

You could export all macros to a folder, then delete all the macros in Keyboard Maestro (KM), then reimport the ones you have exported as you find you need them.

5

Then it could be that you have a "USB Device Trigger" with the letter M as a hotkey. I can't say for sure that this is your problem, but it might be.

6

Hi Airy,

Would I have created the USB Device trigger as a macro myself?

If so, I don’t have one.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Archie

7

Or you could just disable half your groups. Still happening? Disable the other half. Keep halving that half until you narrow it down.

3 Likes
8

Is this only in password fields? What happens if you type an "m" in a text document?

9

Hi Zabobon,

Thanks for your reply.

Now I’m not really sure! I ’think’ it was not restricted to password fields, but now not sure.

So what I have done is to add a ‘1’ to the end of my triggers, so they don’t end with ‘m’ and I’ll see if that fixes it.

The embarrasing part is that when I first got the new keyboard, and the ‘m’ was doing its thing, I thought, I’ll just pop the ‘m’ key off and blow with my blower. Of course, I did this BEFORE checking YT to see that there is a particular method to popping a key-cap off without damaging it. And there is. And I didn’t! So I couldn’t get the key-cap back on and bent the tiny tabs holding the scissor mechanism in place. Phoned a few Mac repair places who said - no way - we don’t look at keyboards anymore.

And I couldn’t very well take the keyboard back to Apple and tell them it was faulty, with a keycap obviously broken. So I had to buy another one. Idiot that I am!

Originally I was going to title this post - The Mysterious ‘m’ key that cost me $249, but decided it made me look a fool if everyone knew how stupid I was! But maybe it will help someone else to remind them to check YouTube before doing things.

So that’s me - thanks for everyone’s input - I’ll repost if my temporary fix of adding the ‘1’ didn’t work,

ArchieP

3 Likes
10

Join the club. Most of the experts here are not too embarrassed to admit they have some stupidity.

4 Likes
11

Open the KM Engine (~/Library/Logs/Keyboard Maestro/Engine.log, also available via the KM "Help" menu's "Open Logs Folder") log file in the Console app.

Do whatever it is you do to make the M key mis-function (you may have to be in a particular context, eg a certain app frontmost).

Look at the most recent log entries in the Console window -- what macros have just triggered?

2 Likes
12

Thanks Nige - the log is a great idea.

:))

Archie

1 Like
13

Select Interactive Help from the Help menu, Something unexpected is happening, and follow the instructions to resolve the issue.

2 Likes