"Character" pop up window opens every few seconds

Hey All,

I lost a day of work and about to lose my mind. Going to try RRFS's suggestion to log in as a guest and see if the window continues to pop up.

But in the meantime, the plot thickens. I reinstalled Lion. Yes, I wasted hours re-installing the Operating System to see if I could "simply" bypass all this techno troubleshooting.

At this point, I went into the Library----->Preferences to delete the "preference.plist" file and there were none there because I had just re-installed Lion.

Guess what? The pop up returned with a vengance. I will not try to log out and log back in as a guest. Not sure what this tells me....RRFS?

What other preferences can I delete at this point? Any way to delete the Special Characters all together? Then re-install?

Seems like Tom IS on the right track. (Never knew about the "secret" Preferences location)

Below, you'll see the CharacterPalette .plist (plus the locked one) but you'll also see a ghost copy.

When the palette pops up, the fake one becomes highlighted (selected) and when the window disappears, it becomes deselected.

I put both in the trash and emptied it. A new .plist appears as well as the ghost copy.

Any hints how to delete the ghost copy?

Oh‚ RRFS—I opened as a guest. The Character window did not pop up.

I rebooted many times, and also to clear the PRAM, shut down and turned off the surge protector, and re-installed Lion.

1. I am not able to open it. This is what happens:

When I double-click on it, a window says it "cannot be opened because the original can't be found" Do I want to Delete Alias or Fix Alias? Selecting "Delete" does nothing. Selecting "Fix" asks me to find the original and I don't know how to get there (Tom's previous instructions for finding this folder is by using "Go" and holding the option key.

2. When I look at Get Info, it blocks me from changing the name. Not able to change the name any other way.

3. When I right-click on it, my choices are:

Open (I covered what happens in #1 above)

Open Enclosing Folder (nothing happens)

Are there any tools in Utilities that would allow me to sniff out and remove the file?

How do I find that particular Preferences folder through an Application? (ie, not through "Go?")

It can't be dragged to the Trash.

OH MY GOD—Thank you!!!!

24 hours of that blinking and I was going insane!!

It stopped as soon as I went to System Preferences—> Language & Text—> Input Sources—> and clicked OFF "Keyboard & Character Viewer"

At the side of the dialog box is a header "Input source options" and "Use the same one in all documents" is selected. This is why the Character viewer popped up all the time, in any Application.

EVERYONE—Thank you SO much for troubleshooting this issue.

I thank you.

My dogs thank you.

My clients thank you!

😀

Tom,

Do you think there's a broken/stuck button on my keyboard?

Or keyboard is corrupted?