"Character" pop up window opens every few seconds

Mackeeper was a mistake, remove every vestige of it.

Did you try resetting PRAM?

PRAM RESET

Zap the PRAM

• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
• Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
• Release the keys.

Hello Alygirlohio

Have you at any time recently had to open Character Viewer, perhaps put it in your menu bar for convenience?

That may have made it more vulnerable to MacKeeper

And if I can add to RRFS's thoughts, MacKeeper is not your friend. Lose it, now.

If you feed it into your search box you will find lots of info on its nefarious nature and just as much on how to get rid of it.

Good luck.

It must really be a nuisance to you ... but reading up about this wretched MacKeeper and getting rid of it has to be your first action. Character Viewer is NOT an application, it is, I believe, merely a part of pages.

Is your Lion program combo updated? If so, you could try running the update again because doing so over the existing set up will cause no problems.

This is one good pece of reading ... http://applehelpwriter.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malwa re/ There should be no gap in malware.

A man called Phil Stokes wrote it.

Hope this helps.

Take a look at 'More like this' opposite to -----------> your initial post. Item three, Character pallet error, (perhaps others or their links may give you more guidance).

Seeing as how it happens in Mail, have you checked your account settings in Mail? Does it happen if you use a different account in Mail? If you log in as Guest does it happen then?

AlyGirlOhio wrote:

Any (last) suggestions from the field?

You need to trash the .plist which has ChararacterPalette in its name in the folder Home/Library/Preferences. In order to see Home/Library, you need to hold down the Option/alt key while doing Finder > Go.

AlyGirlOhio wrote:

But if you read in my first post, I looked for it and my iMac did not have this specific preference.

I did read that, but the folder in which this .plist is located is hidden from the user (unless you take special action), so I thought you might not have been looking in the right place (Home/Library/Preferences, not Library/Preferences).