Mac Keyboard needs "priming" (?) to function as a DP transpo

[buzzsmith]

My modus operandi for beginning the studio day...

1. Turn on 2 racks of external peripherals (MIDI, MOTU interfaces, mic pres, etc.)
2. Mac start
3. Wait until I see the Time Machine disk on the desktop display its icon.
4. Launch DP
5. Open my normal no VI-no plugin template.
6. Check that all audio ins/outs are available.
7. Hit space bar to initiate a brief pass of a bar or two. (This seems to be required in my system to "arm" the MIDI in/out.)

For the past 3 or 4 days, I've noticed that the keyboard will NOT control the transport. (IOW, the space bar will not start the sequence.)

It is definitely getting USB as a wireless Bluetooth mouse is connected to it which functions fine, as is a 2nd gen iLok.
The mouse will start and stop the playback of the empty sequence and do all that it's supposed to do.

The only thing that seems to "fix" the Mac keyboard is to use the mouse to select a track name by option-clicking (there may be other ways) and then typing anything which does show up in the track name field.

Now the keyboard works as expected!??

I'm gonna repair permissions this morning before launching DP to see if that helps.
Prior to that, though, I think that I'll open any app (Mail, word processor, notes, whatever) and see if the keyboard functions normally.

In my approximate 28 years of using DP (or "P") I've never seen this behavior.

Thanks, just sharing...

Buzzy

[buzzsmith]

Update:

Upon booting up the first thing I did was try to rename a file on the desktop. No problem.

Launched DP...same problem as described above.

Weird!

[frankf]

Wireless keyboard, right ? Did you change the batteries? Stating the obvious. Maybe you've done this already.

[buzzsmith]

No, the keyboard is hard wired.

Thanks, though!

Buzzy

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I have occasional loss of both wired and wireless peripherals due to a YSB device dropping out for a few years. I think it started with Leopard and while not as common in Mvks it still happens.

It seems to be a USB connectivity thing and is limited to items connected to hub as opposed to directly to the Mac. Might also be related to the PCI USB FireWire card but I'm not sure.


Simply unplugging and re plugging the device or transmitter fixes it for me. Might be something different on your machine.

[frankf]

No, the keyboard is hard wired.

Thanks, though!

Buzzy

Buzzy, No problem but I'll try again! I recently got a USB not enough power message on my MP 3,1 (ML) . I unplugged my AlphaTrack and it went away. I'm in the middle of a project and don't have time to troubleshoot this. Try unplugging other USB devices and see if the behavior is normal. My keyboard and trackball are also wired, BTW. If you tried this to no avail, I'll leave this thread alone!


Frank Ferrucci

[Shooshie]

Buzzy, I have no idea what is causing that, but I get things like that, too. So far they haven't affected DP much, but it happens in Safari and other applications. I'll type a command that I use all the time, and it just doesn't work. So, I'll start typing other commands, and they don't work either. It's like the keyboard just isn't sending any signals.

Sometimes quitting the app and rebooting fixes it, if you can figure out how to quit; occasionally when this happens, the mouse button doesn't work, either. Sometimes rebooting the computer is the better idea.

Surely this is a phase that Apple is going through. They've got their top programmers working on iOS, leaving OS X to collect bugs. At some point they'll have to fix all this stuff.

Shooshie

[buzzsmith]

Well, this morning I repaired permissions then launched DP.

Same issue. However this time I clicked the mouse in the Tracks window and the keyboard worked as expected.

And I don't know if posting from Tapatalk includes the signature but I'm still 10.6.8 and 8.01.

Thanks, all!

Buzzy

[Dan Worley]

You might want to think about trying some of the ideas in this Apple Support thread. It's not the same exact problem, his is more severe, but it might lead to something.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4251469?tstart=0

[Shooshie]

I'm still 10.6.8 and 8.01.

Oh yeah. I guess our problems are not the same. But you've got me curious. I think I've seen that before. If you find out what is doing it, please let us know, because it's already starting to eat on me.

Shoosh

[buzzsmith]

I will, Shooshie.

I keep a little notebook right under my desk to note issues, workarounds, and good things, too, that relate to my system.

This is definitely "new".

I have not checked the Apple link above, yet, that Dan graciously posted.

Buzzy

[mikehalloran]

Is Bluetooth enabled? If it is, turn it off and see if you still have a problem. Use a wired mouse while you are testing.

[buzzsmith]

Mike, Bluetooth is enabled for the Logitech mouse.

I'll try that, though.

As I mentioned, this keyboard "disconnect" seems to only be affecting DP and only on initial launch.

It's not a huge deal because the described workaround only takes a few seconds it's just a very recent curiosity.

I don't recall any apps, etc. installed within the past few weeks that may have contributed to this behavior.

I'll double check that, too.

Buzzy

[frankf]

And I don't know if posting from Tapatalk includes the signature but I'm still 10.6.8 and 8.01.

Thanks, all!

Buzzy

Tapatalk users don't see your Motunation signature unfortunately. And last time I checked, if you update your Tapatalk sig with system info = to Motunation, it shows 2x there. It bugs me, because I use Tapatalk a lot on my iPad but can't see signatures.



Frank Ferrucci

[bayswater]

Is it possible that this is a result of a disk spinning down, and DP waiting for it to come up again before responding to the keyboard? I remember this happening a lot a while back, and now I think I'm seeing it again. On my system, sometimes the beachball starts spinning, but usually not. I recently went from OS 10.8.4 to 10.8.5 and from DP 8.05 to 8.06, and one of those might have done it.