Unwanted Universal Access Active

Question

Unwanted Universal Access Active

I have a client that reported problems with black boxes around icons his mouse pointer is selecting and that options within his Apple Menu are doubling up. I understand this to be that Universal Access is active. I assume the customer has hit a keyboard shortcut and activated it inadvertently. I have seen this quite often with many other clients and previously I have asked the client to go to their Home folder, Library/Preferences and remove the file "com.apple.universalaccess.plist" and reboot to resolve. However I have asked this customer to do this but Universal Access remains active. The only difference I can see from previous clients that removing the preference has been successful for and this client is that the former was running 10.4 Tiger and the latter is running 10.5 Leopard. I have tried zapping the PRAM thinking Apple may be storing Universal Access setting in PRAM now but again it is still active. Does anybody have any thoughts on this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

iMac 24" - 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Jun 10, 2008 5:12 AM

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Answer 1

roam

Level 6

13,631 points

Jun 10, 2008 5:29 AM in response to Anton Marcelline

Unless the desired re-adjustment is made in System Preferences, Universal Access will just re-establish any .plist file that was deleted. I suggest your friend just set things up without the Universal Access features being enabled.
.plist files are generated by the applications themselves.

Message was edited by: roam2

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Answer 2

Jun 11, 2008 1:30 PM in response to roam

Yes removing com.appleuniversalaccess.plist and rebooting does indeed recreate the plist file but in previous systems, ie 10.4, it resets all settings back to factory default, ie not active. This particular clients systems does not reset back to factory defaults.

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Answer 3

Jun 11, 2008 1:33 PM in response to roam

Yes removing com.appleuniversalaccess.plist and rebooting does indeed recreate the plist file but in previous systems, ie 10.4, it resets all settings back to factory default, ie not active. This particular clients systems does not reset back to factory defaults.

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Answer 4

Jun 11, 2008 1:33 PM in response to roam

Yes removing com.appleuniversalaccess.plist and rebooting does indeed recreate the plist file but in previous systems, ie 10.4, it resets all settings back to factory default, ie not active. This particular clients systems does not reset back to factory defaults.

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Answer 5

Jun 11, 2008 1:35 PM in response to roam

Yes removing com.appleuniversalaccess.plist and rebooting does indeed recreate the plist file but in previous systems, ie 10.4, it resets all settings back to factory default, ie not active. This particular clients systems does not reset back to factory defaults.

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Answer 6

roam

Level 6

13,631 points

Jun 11, 2008 7:50 PM in response to Anton Marcelline

On a closer reading of your initial post, I don't see Universal Access at play here.

problems with black boxes around icons his mouse pointer is selecting and that options within his Apple Menu are doubling up.

Can you make black boxes around icons with Universal Access?
As far as the Apple Menu items doubling up, you were on the right track, wrong plist.
Trash the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist, then log out and log back in again. That will remove the double ups in the Apple Menu.

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Answer 7

Drubbing

Level 1

0 points

Jun 12, 2008 11:48 PM in response to Anton Marcelline

I have this problem too. Just bought an new iMac. Had a look around the apps and fired up UA. Decided I wouldn't be using it, but it won't go away on susequent start ups, and it won't close down.

Any fixes to get it off the desktop would be appreciated.

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Answer 8

Jun 19, 2008 7:15 PM in response to Anton Marcelline

Black boxes around things selected by the mouse probably mean that voice over is turned on. You can switch it off with command F5 if this is the case.

Good luck!

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