I can't type anything in Finder!

Question

I can't type anything in Finder!

I thought something was wrong with my keyboard, but this only happens in Finder. I can't type in the search field. I can't rename a file after I've selected it.
I haven't done anything to any preferences or loaded any new software in a while - this just started today.
I reset my keyboard preferences to the default but that didn't help.

thanks in advance for any help.

Lance

G4, 867MHz, 1.12GB SDRAM, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Aug 26, 2006 6:11 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Richard T

Level 2

265 points

Aug 27, 2006 11:29 AM in response to Lance Lanagan

The one that always takes me a few minutes to work out is accidentally having the number lock on. Have you checked?

Reply

Answer 2

Aug 27, 2006 1:54 PM in response to Richard T

Nope, but I just did and that didn't fix it. I accidentally posted this question twice, and the other suggestions were more centered on restarting Finder. Guess I'll give that a go.
Thanks

Reply

Answer 3

Aug 31, 2006 2:30 AM in response to Lance Lanagan

This happened two times today for people here at work, and it has happened before. It's quite rare though but the only solution seems to be to relaunch the Finder.

Reply

Answer 4

Sep 3, 2006 7:59 PM in response to star-affinity

I forgot to update this post, but relaunching Finder did the trick. Thanks.
Lance

Reply

Answer 5

Sep 3, 2006 9:54 PM in response to Lance Lanagan

This has been a persistent bug in Finder for at least a year. I am not sure, but it seems to occur when characters are pasted into a filename resulting in an error dialog. After that, no text can be typed in Finder until Finder is relaunched.

Reply

Answer 6

Sep 30, 2006 4:11 AM in response to Lance Lanagan

Just a question — do any of you guys use Microsoft Entourage?
I just got the "can't type in the Finder" problem and it was just after quitting Entourage. Anyway, the OS X 10.4.8 update didn't solve this problem....

Reply