I wrote the basic display text macro below. I tried 20 times and the CRON does not trigger.
purpose: the macro simply displays text in a window (very useful to create important reminders when associated with CRON)
when I run the macro by clicking on run, it works normally - engine log: nothing is recorded at the moment the macro should trigger (I tried multiple times)
I checked both the CRON syntax and the macro group config many times.
I triple checked that both the macro and the macro group are enabled
Ok. So at the time I posted today, it was 10:21AM (US EST) which is 3:21 PM in Zurich. The CRON job in your post was well past 11:58 AM. Can you try 6:45 PM to see if it fires?
I ran more tests as @ccstone taught me, and found that after running the macro below which activates the group, everything works perfectly which suggests that at some point the macro group was deactivated.
My question becomes: how does one ascertain the activation status of a macro group or a macro? Everything has always been enabled which is visible in the context menu. I am referring to the "activated" status.
I have keyboard shortcuts to enable/disable macros and macro groups, and it's not all that difficult for my fingers to do the walking and toggle the status of an item without my explicit consent. This doesn't happen often, but ever once and a while...
That's why my first troubleshooting step is:
Make certain sure both the macro and its parent macro group are enabled.
My second troubleshooting step is:
Make absolutely certain my macro group is active in the context where I want it working.
Sometimes groups can become disconnected from the app they're supposed to work with – and there are other ways a group context can be broken.
One quick way of doing this is switch to the group context (global or app-specific) and run my Trigger Macro by Name macro and then search for the macro in question. Trigger Macro by Name only displays macros that are available in the current context, so if the macro I'm looking for is missing then something is clearly amiss.
Keep these two words in mind:
Enabled vs Active
Enabled means the item is enabled in the Keyboard Maestro Editor.
Active means the macro is available in the current context.
If I remember correctly I have never seen a case where a macro or macro group showed as enabled but actually wasn't.
Another troubleshooting step I always take is to make sure the Keyboard Maestro Engine is running. On a few occasions I beat my head against the wall trying to troubleshoot a macro only to realize after much grief that the engine wasn't running (nearly always my own fault too).
It's a good idea to run the Interactive Help from the Keyboard Maestro Editor Help menu, because it runs a number of these tests for you on the selected macro or macro group.
As you can read in my initial note (see below) below, I had already done quite a lot of troubleshooting before posting.
My question was about what if those basic steps don't work.
thank you for the tip about trigger macro by name. I will create a trigger macro by name palette (one with each option active, enabled, etc)
I also found it useful to check the engine log.
I think that I "found" a new source of problems with active/inactive and would be curious to know what you think.
The macro has always worked for years. I suddenly remembered that just before the problems appeared, I had created another macro last week, the purpose of which was simply to display the reminder palette, to allow me to manually run or edit (opt click the macros).
Keep in mind that Trigger Macro by Name supports Keyboard Maestro's search string syntax, so you should be able to get by with only one variant of the macro.
So Funny.
