Press and hold for special characters keeps disabling itself

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26 points

Press and hold for special characters keeps disabling itself

Occasionally I use special characters in my work - and I find that every now and then for some reason the "press and hold" feature for special characters keeps turning itself off - if I check in terminal with:

defaults read -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled

I get '0' returned. I can re-enable it with:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

And it will work as expected where I when I press and hold 'e' for example I'll get a list of special characters I can use on that..

But then after an update or something it will change back to disabled - is this the expected behaviour now or is something funny going on?

Posted on Apr 9, 2020 2:59 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

shad0wca7 Author

Level 1

26 points

Apr 20, 2020 10:55 AM in response to shad0wca7

I've found it.. It's the Parsec app used to remotely control another host..

Verified by reading when the app is closed (set to true). Open the app (false), re-enable and then repeat and it is set to false again..

For some reason it turns this off and then doesn't re-enable it.

A quick search around doesn't reveal anything illuminating. I'll contact them and see where this goes... Thanks for your help!

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Answer 2

shad0wca7 Author

Level 1

26 points

Apr 9, 2020 5:30 PM in response to MrHoffman

I've done the SMC and NVRAM reset - there are no anti-virus or malware / cleaner nonsense addons or applications. The setting seems to persist across reboots but I'm not sure if it's persisting over updates...

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Answer 3

Apr 20, 2020 7:42 AM in response to shad0wca7

Search for apps that embed the cited ApplePressAndHoldEnabled string?

As for your question, not that I’m aware of, or I would have mentioned that.

It’s possible to block (most) access to the command or to the associated data file with an access control list entry, though that’d also likely break other (legitimate) access. Apple’s ACL implementation lacks a log activity entry in the ACL, and the closest analog is probably an add-on such as fswatch using FSEvents. Target the plist, or maybe the plist directory. Which might or might not help here.

Beyond the add-on cleaning apps, add-on anti-malware apps, any add-on keyboard-related or mouse-related apps?

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Answer 4

shad0wca7 Author

Level 1

26 points

Apr 20, 2020 7:56 AM in response to MrHoffman

There's no keyboard or mouse related apps - I used to have better touch tool on an older installation but don't use it at all any more (and had formatted since..) I can't think of any 'interesting' or unusual app I'm using...

I've updated my script to give me a desktop notification when it notices the change so let's see if that helps narrow things down for now..

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Answer 5

Apr 9, 2020 3:02 PM in response to shad0wca7

Reset the SMC and reset the NVRAM, and remove any add-on anti-virus, add-on anti-malware, add-on cleaners, add-on VPN clients, or related apps, reboot, and try again.

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Answer 6

Apr 9, 2020 5:37 PM in response to shad0wca7

I’d be tempted to write a script that checks the setting every hour or two, and use that to try to identify when the setting gets toggled... Trying to narrow down the cause...

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Answer 7

shad0wca7 Author

Level 1

26 points

Apr 9, 2020 5:39 PM in response to MrHoffman

oohh that sounds a little unpleasant... I might look into that but I think you've confirmed my original question which was if it's expected behaviour or not (seems it's not)..

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