MacOS Messages emoji window allows only one emoji, then closes

What's your secret? I just typed in a iMessage, and tried both - opening Character Viewer and clicking the emoji face to the right of the Message box.

In both cases, the emoji window did open, with a little 'arrow' pointing to where my cursor was currently placed, and allowed me to select one emoji, which it placed at the cursor point, then immediately closed.

No path of opening that emoji window caused it to become a free-standing window on the desktop (like it did on my old iMac running Sierra,) nor allowed me to place more than one emoji before shutting.

Are you on some older version of OS?

It's universal. Character Viewer closes after 1 emoji in iMessage, Notes, MSWord, any text-based program.

I'm on a new Mac Studio (Apple Silicon.) It's a clean install with virtually no new wild-card programs or extensions that would cause this.

But I don't think this is the reason, because this is a common problem - at least 6 other people have posted this same problem going back to 2019, since before Apple Silicon.

Nobody could offer a resolution and those posts were closed due to lack of activity. Feedback about it has been sent repeatedly to Apple, but that's a joke, they rarely act on these.

I don't really feel like rebooting in Safe Mode just to hunt down this minor-but-nagging problem, I'll just repeatedly open Character Viewer. Perhaps someone else with an obvious resolution might respond here.

If you mean symbols, flags, etc. in the same Character Viewer window, no.

No matter I what I choose from the Character Viewer window, it closes after 1 choice.

Example: ⍦ Another example:🇹🇫

Both of those, I opened the Character Viewer window by either hitting ctrl+cmd+space or clicking the little "Show Emoji & Symbols" icon in the top-right menu bar.

Obviously something was changed, because the window used to open off to the side on my desktop, with no 'insert arrow' pointing at the current cursor position of whatever text program you're in. At first that seemed like a cool idea, to have the window seat itself right under where you are typing. But not if it forces you to reopen with each new entry.

That did it.

Once I expanded the Character Viewer, it now opens on my desktop again, not a small version that opens in the program you're typing. I never even knew 2 versions existed, and thought Apple simply made a permanent change about where & how the Viewer displays. Who knew? Could've used a heads up about that, but anyway, now I can enter multiple emojis, thanks. 😀😃😂