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Illustrator CS6 Spacebar stops working seemingly randomly

Explorer ,
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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This is an infrequent issue I've had, but it has happened more than once in the last few weeks that I've been using CS6 on a regular basis:

On occasion, my spacebar will just stop working in Illustrator CS6, so I can't use the hand tool or zoom or… you know, type, basically making Illustrator unuseable. Now, I'm PRETTY sure it has nothing to do with my actual keyboard, because the spacebar will continue to work just fine in every other application even after it does this.

The only fix is restarting the computer. Just restarting the application doesn't do it. Deleting the preferences file and restarting doesn't fix it. It's really perplexing.

Now, I'm NOT certain about this, but I think it might occur after waking from sleep (but not immediately, so perhaps it's unrelated). If/when it happens next, I will attempt to see if I can reproduce the issue, but so far I have no idea why it happens; it just seems random.

I'm using a late 2008 MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM, running Mac OSX 10.7.4 and Illustrator CS6 (16.0.0, in case people see this after an update has been released).

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Adobe
replies 104 Replies 104
Enthusiast ,
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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Make sure your OS X Spotlight keyboard shortcut is turned off. (the default is command-space) 

System Prefs > Spotlight.  (menu shortcut at bottom of window)

There might be some other OS X keyboard shortcuts that are using the spacebar too.

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Explorer ,
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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It works, then it STOPS working. If it were a conflict with any keyboard shortcut, it would never have worked in the first place.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 04, 2012 Jul 04, 2012

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I am having this problem as well, but happening quite frequently.

Also having Illustrator crashing a lot randomly as well.

Tried 32bit as well - same issue.

I've deleted settings as well - same issue.

I've tried this with multiple files, old and newly created in CS6. Same problem.

No issues with CS5.

Win7 x64 SP1

16GB RAM

128GB SSD

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New Here ,
Mar 20, 2015 Mar 20, 2015

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That has nothing to do with it. I have both active just fine. As long as you press the space bar first, spot light search doesn't get activated and even if you do press it first, it still works, just both commands happen at once.

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New Here ,
Aug 07, 2017 Aug 07, 2017

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THANK YOU! I found I just had to turn spotlight keyboard shortcut (command + space) off and then turn it on again

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 09, 2012 Jul 09, 2012

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I've run into this problem and having searched other forums, I found there was a conflict between Adobe and Chrome (at least in my case).  I hate having to shut down Chrome, but at the moment, that's the only fix I can find.  I want to find a way to disable Chrome's shortcut keys, but can't seem to find it.

Good luck.

Tim

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 09, 2012 Jul 09, 2012

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Not a Chrome user here.

Was using firefox and tried with nothing else open at the time to replicate.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 10, 2012 Jul 10, 2012

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There are some Firefox add-ons which will induce this problem.

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New Here ,
Aug 19, 2014 Aug 19, 2014

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Thank you! It was the Evernote web clipping extension I'm using in Chrome.

All sorted!

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 01, 2017 Feb 01, 2017

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Chrome was causing the same issue for me, after I closed chrome i was able to move around using Space bar + left mouse click.

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New Here ,
Oct 29, 2014 Oct 29, 2014

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Same issue.

Shut down Chrome -> solved

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 17, 2016 Apr 17, 2016

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Quitting Chrome worked for me.  Simply quit Chrome, while keeping Illustrator open and magically the spacebar worked again. Relaunched Chrome and restored all the tabs I had open and Illustrator still worked. (So far so good.)

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Community Expert ,
Jul 10, 2012 Jul 10, 2012

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Gordon, others,

Item 7 in Other options  is a list of usual suspects.

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Explorer ,
Aug 16, 2012 Aug 16, 2012

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I have the same Problem on 10.8. It was fine on 10.6.8.

I use neither Chrome nor Firefox.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 16, 2012 Aug 16, 2012

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Are you using any Growl notification software?

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Explorer ,
Aug 16, 2012 Aug 16, 2012

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Nope. I think it's got to do with Safari.

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 24, 2012 Nov 24, 2012

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I'm having the same problem. I can't pinpoint a fix yet, but a workaround is to close all browsers. It seems to correct the issue for me...every time so far. I'm running on Mac-OS 10.6.8.

My troubleshooting thus far (re: illustrator & photoshop CS6 - hand tool stops working) = conflict between browser and illustrator/photoshop...that's as far as I am. Sorry for the vague, non-tech response, but it's all I got so far

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Participant ,
Jan 24, 2013 Jan 24, 2013

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I have found out there is a conflict between Adobe and 1Password. Quitting 1Password brings back my spacebar.

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 09, 2013 Feb 09, 2013

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Thanks for mentioning that, Joerg -- 1Password's what was causing the problem for me.

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 22, 2013 Feb 22, 2013

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Odd. I was not having this problem before, but today it happened in BOTH Manga Studio 5 AND Photoshop CS5 while working in both! I was only running Safari at the time and even though I have 1Password 3 installed, the app was not running at the time, but the Safari extension was. I've had this setup for a long time though, why would it start affecting two different apps this way now??

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New Here ,
Mar 01, 2013 Mar 01, 2013

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It was 1Password Chrome Extension in my cause: I installed the beta version of the plugin now the shortcuts are working again in Photoshop and Illustrator.

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 12, 2015 Aug 12, 2015

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After a long time of forgetting about this problem, it is back again in both Manga Studio 5 and Photoshop CS5. I forgot what I did to stop it last time and found my old post in this forum after searching for a solution.

Sorry to see there still isn't one single way to solve or diagnose it. I guess I will restart the computer and hope it disappears again for another year...

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 17, 2016 Feb 17, 2016

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It happened again today in Manga Studio 5 and Photoshop CS5. I quit and reopened the programs but it still would not work. I quit Safari and all of a sudden I could use the spacebar again as a Hand Tool. Opening Safari again did not make the problem reappear though, so maybe it was some combination of Safari and something else (I was also playing music from Amazon's Music Cloud website in Safari when it happened, something there?)

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 08, 2013 Oct 08, 2013

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I had the problem (Spacebar Hand not working) in Photoshop CS6, and read here about 1Password - found I had it open - but not logged in in the background.

Quit it and Hand works.

I then opened 1Password and signed in, Spacebar still works.

Maybe when it's in it's Unlogged in state there's a conflict?

Whatever- for me 1Password was the culprit.

Thansk to you all for a solution. It was driving me crazy.....

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