Hey guys, I just wasted about 2 hours trying to debug unexpected behavior of a shortcut/hotkey in the Finder. Turned out it was a hotkey set by Default Folder X. BTW, a key diagnostic tool I used was Booting into Safe Mode, recently suggested by @Tom for another issue.
For some reason, Keycue did NOT find/identity this hotkey.
(or maybe I don't know how to use Keycue correctly). But Safe Mode allowed me to start my Mac clean, and then add potential culprits one at a time.
###Use KM to Set All of Your Shortcuts
This is where Keyboard Maestro comes in. I have found it very helpful to set all of my shortcuts/hotkeys in KM, rather than in a multitude of other tools. This way, I have only one place to look. I obviously had forgot about / overlooked Default Folder X.
In case you are not aware of this powerful feature, you can use the KM App/Editor global search ⌘⌥F to search for all macros triggered by specific keys. This is a search for trigger of OPTION UP-ARROW: t:⌥↑
###My Case
In my case it was the ⌥↑ and ⌥↓ shortcuts.
Normally these are macOS global shortcuts that take you to the top and bottom of a list, respectively. But in the Finder, they were opening new windows to folders I could not understand.
I have now gone through the Default Folder X preferences, and removed most shortcuts. If you were not already aware of these, you might want to review.
Great that my suggestion was of use. (I’m suggesting Safe Boot as a first troubleshooting step pretty often, but sometimes I have the impression people don’t understand the benefits…)
This is odd. For me, the ⌥↑ and ⌥↓ DF shortcuts only work in Open/Save dialog windows, and I find them quite useful there. In normal Finder windows the shortcuts work as usual, that is, they take me to the first/last item of the window.
It is useful -- I can attest to that. For a long time I've made it a practice to use safe boot prophylactically -- once a week I do a safe boot followed by a shut down and then a NVRAM reset. Probably overkill, but the procedure sure keeps things moving smoothly.
Heck, yes, I think so! Usually I’m doing a normal reboot once a week, at the most.
Safe Boot also deletes many caches, and I always thought caches were there to be filled, not to be emptied (except when something goes wrong, of course).
BTW, a SMC Reset can also be useful sometimes (= not every week ).
(except when something goes wrong, of course).