Option-right arrow stopped working

Question

Level 1

10 points

Option-right arrow stopped working

I'm running OS X 10.11.6. I have just recently run into a problem with a couple of keybinding that have stopped working in some/most applications.

Option-Right Arrow

Option-Left Arrow

These are supposed to advance to the next or previous word in the current text object. Here's an Apple document describing these key shortcuts: Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support (in the 'Documents' section)

Option–Left Arrow	Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word.
Option–Right Arrow	Move the insertion point to the end of the next word.

I use these shortcuts all the time, and so I am constantly missing them. This issue started for me yesterday. It appears to have happened in the middle of the day - I was working all day and don't recall seeing the issue until late in the afternoon.

The problem only appears to be in certain applications:

OK: Slack, Thunderbird, Terminal (Terminal has it's own special key-binding, though.)

Not working: Mail (Apple), Firefox, TextEdit and FileMaker are all non-functional in this regard. (Within FileMaker there are a couple of other Option shortcuts I use that are also not working: Option-Return, Option-Tab.)

Cmd-Right Arrow (move to end of line) and Cmd-Left Arrow (move to start of line) work correctly in all these apps.

Option-Delete (delete one word) doesn't work. Option-Backspace (backspace one word) does work.

I have rebooted my system (no difference). I did not perform any system updates. I do have cats, and they love to step on the keyboard... 🙂

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

MacBook, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Mar 22, 2017 10:19 AM

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Answer 1

Cronk9 Author

Level 1

10 points

Apr 11, 2017 1:14 PM in response to Eric Root

I got it figured out and solved - thanks to a guy at an Apple store (Genius Bar). I took my laptop in the other day just on the off chance that they might know what was going on; he did a bit of research and asking of co-workers and finally came up with a solution: a extra 'Input Source' under "Keyboards" in System Preferences.

I had two input sources (for some reason) - one was "US" and the other was "Unicode hex input" or some such. It appears that certain applications were using "US" (these are the applications that worked) and others were defaulting to "Unicode Hex input" (these are the applications that didn't work). The Unicode input source apparently didn't have a key binding mapped for these various key combinations that were failing (there were many - but not all).

So I removed that 2nd input source, leaving just the "US" one, and everything was working again! I'm so happy! Thanks all for your suggestions - I'm glad that I didn't have to reinstall the OS.

Justin

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Answer 2

raina_b22

Community Specialist

Mar 23, 2017 11:20 AM in response to Cronk9

Hello Cronk9,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

I see that you are having an issue with some of the keyboard shortcuts on your MacBook. It's working in some apps, but not in others.

I recommend some isolation testing for this issue to see if it's isolated to your main user account. If an issue stops happening when you log out of your main user account and log in with another, the issue could be related to the files or settings in your user account.

How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac

If you don't have the same issue in another user account, log into your main user account and take a look at the items that open automatically when you log in. Check to see if there are any conflicts that could be preventing these keyboard shortcuts from working.

OS X El Capitan: Open items automatically when you log in

Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers.

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,483 points

Mar 31, 2017 8:19 PM in response to Cronk9

Restart the computer holding down the command - option/alt - P - R keys before the gray screen appears. Continue to hold until you hear the startup chime for the second time.

Reset NVRAM/PRAM

Try a SMC reset. The article covers when this is required, but doing this will not affect anything.

Reset SMC

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

685,483 points

Apr 6, 2017 5:43 PM in response to Cronk9

The only other thing I can think of to try is to reinstall the OS.

Do a backup, preferable 2 separate ones on 2 drives. Boot to the Recovery Volume (command - R on a restart or hold down the option/alt key during a restart) and select Recovery Volume. Run Disk Utility and select First Aid. Then re-install the OS.

OS X Recovery

OS X Recovery (2)

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Answer 5

Cronk9 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 23, 2017 11:29 AM in response to raina_b22

Thanks for the tips, Becky.

I tested logging in with the Guest account (the only other account on this computer). That account could correctly utilize the option-arrow keyboard shortcuts to navigate between words. So it would seem to be something with my user profile.

I went through and disabled various things, turned off startup programs, etc., but was unable to get the shortcuts to work under my own user profile.

* I tried the 'hold shift while logging in' suggestion: no change

* I removed all the items listed in my Users -> Login Items: no change

* I removed a couple of programs that had some helpers that run (e.g. Acrobat and Google): no change

The fact that it happens only in certain programs, though, is rather odd - it would seem to imply that it's not a general system setting. But the fact that things work fine in the Guest user seems to imply the opposite - that it IS a general system setting.

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Answer 6

Eric Root

Level 10

685,483 points

Mar 24, 2017 5:20 PM in response to Cronk9

Try running this program in your normal account, then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read. On the screen with Options, please open Options and check the bottom 2 boxes before running. Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy Report” and then paste into a reply. This will show what is running on your computer. No personal information is shown.

Etrecheck – System Information

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Answer 7

Cronk9 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 27, 2017 8:49 AM in response to Eric Root

Hi Eric,

Here's my EtreCheck result:

--------------------------------------

EtreCheck version: 3.1.5 (343)

Report generated 2017-03-27 08:44:18

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime 1:53

Performance: Excellent

Click the [Support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Problem: Other problem

Description:

Certain OS X native keyboard commands are not functioning in some apps, e.g. ‘option-right arrow’ to advance to the next word.

Hardware Information: ⓘ

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013)

[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro10,2

1 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-3230M) CPU: 2-core

8 GB RAM Not upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

Wireless: en0: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 349

Video Information: ⓘ

Intel HD Graphics 4000

Color LCD 2560 x 1600

System Software: ⓘ

OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (15G1217) - Time since boot: about 3 days

Disk Information: ⓘ

APPLE SSD SM256E disk0 : (251 GB) (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

[Show SMART report]

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

MacintoshHD (disk1) / [Startup]: 249.77 GB (26.65 GB free)

Core Storage: disk0s2 250.14 GB Online

USB Information: ⓘ

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Thunderbolt Information: ⓘ

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: ⓘ

Anywhere

Kernel Extensions: ⓘ

/Applications/zoom.us.app

[not loaded] zoom.us.ZoomAudioDevice (1.1 - SDK 10.8 - 2016-11-17) [Support]

Startup Items: ⓘ

ChmodBPF: Path: /Library/StartupItems/ChmodBPF

Startup items no longer function in OS X Yosemite or later

System Launch Agents: ⓘ

[not loaded] 8 Apple tasks

[loaded] 152 Apple tasks

[running] 79 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[not loaded] 45 Apple tasks

[loaded] 160 Apple tasks

[running] 86 Apple tasks

Launch Agents: ⓘ

[failed] com.adobe.ARMDCHelper.cc24aef4a1b90ed56a725c38014c95072f92651fb65e1bf9c8e43c37a 23d420d.plist (2017-02-06) [Support]

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (2017-01-13) [Support]

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist (2016-09-22) [Support]

[loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist (2014-05-16) [Support]

Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist (2017-02-06) [Support]

[loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist (2017-02-06) [Support]

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (2017-02-28) [Support]

[loaded] com.barebones.authd.plist (2013-04-27) [Support]

[loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist (2017-01-23) [Support]

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist (2011-03-10) [Support]

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist (2016-06-22) [Support]

[loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist (2014-05-16) [Support]

User Launch Agents: ⓘ

[loaded] com.dropbox.DropboxMacUpdate.agent.plist (2017-03-24) [Support]

[running] com.spotify.webhelper.plist (2017-02-17) [Support]

[loaded] com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist (2017-03-23) [Support]

User Login Items: ⓘ

Dropbox Application

(/Applications/Dropbox.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

o1dbrowserplugin: 5.41.3.0 - SDK 10.8 (2015-12-15) [Support]

Google Earth Web Plug-in: 7.1 (2015-08-24) [Support]

Default Browser: 601 - SDK 10.11 (2016-07-08)

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: 3.2.0.16 - SDK 10.8 (2013-09-27) [Support]

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 15.023.20056 - SDK 10.11 (2017-02-18) [Support]

FlashPlayer-10.6: 25.0.0.127 - SDK 10.9 (2017-03-23) [Support]

Silverlight: 5.1.41212.0 - SDK 10.6 (2016-03-03) [Support]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (2016-12-21)

Flash Player: 25.0.0.127 - SDK 10.9 (2017-03-23) [Support]

googletalkbrowserplugin: 5.41.3.0 - SDK 10.8 (2015-12-11) [Support]

SharePointBrowserPlugin: 14.4.2 - SDK 10.6 (2014-06-15) [Support]

AdobePDFViewer: 15.023.20056 - SDK 10.11 (2017-02-18) [Support]

JavaAppletPlugin: Java 8 Update 101 build 13 (2016-09-22) Check version

User internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: 1.0.105 (2013-06-26) [Support]

WebEx64: 1.0 - SDK 10.10 (2017-02-10) [Support]

ZoomUsPlugIn: 3.6.11639.1109 - SDK 10.11 (2016-11-17) [Support]

3rd Party Preference Panes: ⓘ

Flash Player (2017-02-28) [Support]

Flip4Mac WMV (2013-03-29) [Support]

Java (2016-09-22) [Support]

Time Machine: ⓘ

Skip System Files: NO

Mobile backups: OFF

Auto backup: NO - Auto backup turned off

Volumes being backed up:

MacintoshHD: Disk size: 249.77 GB Disk used: 223.12 GB

Destinations:

Backup [Local]

Total size: 999.73 GB

Total number of backups: 10

Oldest backup: 8/27/2016, 15:18

Last backup: 3/24/2017, 11:21

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 999.73 GB > (Disk size 249.77 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU: ⓘ

6% thunderbird

5% WindowServer

2% kernel_task

1% fontd

1% plugin-container

Top Processes by Memory: ⓘ

845 MB kernel_task

770 MB thunderbird

598 MB firefox

459 MB plugin-container

434 MB mdworker(14)

Virtual Memory Information: ⓘ

2.20 GB Available RAM

413 MB Free RAM

5.80 GB Used RAM

1.80 GB Cached files

1.54 GB Swap Used

Diagnostics Information: ⓘ

Mar 25, 2017, 07:52:09 AM ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/FileMaker Pro_2017-03-25-075209_[redacted].crash

com.filemaker.client.advanced12 - /Applications/FileMaker Pro 15 Advanced/FMPA 15.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMaker Pro

Mar 24, 2017, 11:56:58 AM ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/iTunes_2017-03-24-115658_[redacted].crash

com.apple.iTunes - /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes

Mar 24, 2017, 10:36:16 AM Self test - passed

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Answer 8

Cronk9 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 31, 2017 11:14 AM in response to Cronk9

Nada, nothing, zilch?

Does someone know if there's a plist file somewhere that controls the general system's keyboard shortcuts? Is there something that I can review to see what key commands are defined?

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Answer 9

Cronk9 Author

Level 1

10 points

Mar 24, 2017 10:39 AM in response to Cronk9

I also tried booting into Safe Mode (hold down shift key while rebooting); that didn't change anything under my own user account - the keyboard shortcuts still didn't work.

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