What is Causing the Character "q" To be Typed?

  1. Boot into safe mode.
  2. In safe mode, try hard to reproduce the issue. With “hard” I mean: if the issue normally occurs every 1 out of 10 I would try it at least 30 times.
  3. If you are unable to reproduce the issue then you have a high probability that a third thing is involved.
  4. Reboot in normal mode.
  5. Try again to reproduce it. Why again? Safe mode does not only deactivate processes and extensions, it also cleans system caches – which is a persistent change.
  6. If you can reproduce the issue again, then…
  7. …you have to find the culprit by elimination (unfortunately; but at least you know there is something more involved):
  • If you have another Mac try it there. Depending on the outcome, find out which processes are running only on the one Mac, or which processes are running on both Macs.
  • I you don’t have another Mac, successively deactivate groups of running processes and check again.
  • Intuition might help, but don’t rely on it.

I know, with intermittent issues, like in your case, the elimination process can be very tedious. That’s why Safe mode is so incredibly useful: if in safe mode the issue occurs also, then you can most likely save yourself the whole hassle of eliminating other processes.

In my case it was Yoink. But my issue was a mouse selection and clicking issue, nothing keyboard-related. So I don’t think this will really help here.

Edit:

FWIW, on my machine I’m unable to reproduce your issue. Tried it 20 times or so with BBEdit and SD6, with and without your macro.

Edit II:

You don’t happen to have Karabiner installed, do you? If the issue does not occur in safe mode, then Karabiner would be the first thing I’d try to eliminate.

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