Hi Gordon, As John and others have suggested, you should check whether this behavior is present only for your account, or for other logins. That will determined whether it is a user account specific plist file that has been corrupted. Other things you can try are checking whether this behavior is also present when you use a paired Bluetooth keyboard, which might point to a key remapping issue rather than a physical keyboard problem. If you have old cloned bootable backup, you could try attaching and booting from that hard drive and checking whether the same problems exist for you under your account. That would also help to separate out physical hardware issues from corrupted preference files. I wouldn't expect key remapping to be an issue unless you have remapped keys as part of a virtual machine installation or used KeyRemap4MacBook.
It's also possible that you could have text expansion or text substitution software like TextExpander or Typinator running. again, that would probably only affect your account HTH? Cheers, Esther > On Jan 23, 2014, at 8:30 AM, Gordon Smith wrote: > > Hi John > Yes, I'm sure it is a preference problem of some kind. I did look under the > shortcuts tab this morning but didn't spot anything obvious. But I'll go and > look again to see whether I can set back to defaults. As you quite rightly > suggest, that would certainly be a good place to start. I wish that I could > point the finger at a specific time and event when this starting being a > problem for me. But I will head off there now and look. Many thanks for the > reshodse. > actually > Kind Regards > Gordon Smith > Information Technology Accessibility consultant > Providing Support For Young People Living With Sight Loss: Advice On > Accessible Information Technologies And Braille Transcription Services. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: John Gunn > To: OS X & iOS Accessibility <mac-access@mac-acces > Date sent: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 07:01:04 -0600 > Subject: Re: Really odd Issue With Mac And Spacebar > > Gordon, > > I would go to system preferences keyboard then shortcut tab and set to > defaults. > > If the above doesn't work try to look for a .plist file to delete which might > also set to defaults. Which ior where that is have no clue. > > John > > > On Jan 23, 2014, at 12:27 AM, Gordon Smith wrote: > > Hello all > > I’m currently experiencing a really odd issue with my Mac. No matter what I > try, I’m unable to use my space bar without using a modifier key such as the > shift key when pressing space. Does anybody happen to have any suggestions > as to why this might be? > > Now and then, if I forget to use the modifier key, kind of system window > which Lynne says looks like the window that you sometimes get if you > right-click on an object or similar, using the physical trackpad or a mouse. > > If anybody can help me resolve this, i’d be most grateful as it’s driving me > absolutely bananas. > > Kind regards > > <--- Gordon Smith --- > > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something unpredictable happen. Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>