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Big Sur 11.0.1 - Arrow Keys Do Not Work in iMessage with Dual Monitors

JonDigital

JonDigital

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 26, 2010
265
207
Coral Springs, FL
There seems to be a bug where you cannot use left, right, up or down arrow keys in the compose area of messages if you have the iMessage window on a 2nd monitor. I believe this bug goes back to one of the betas. Does anyone have a fix for it other than waiting for an update from Apple? Already submitted feedback.

Thanks!
 
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Must be because we don't have super duper M1 Macs, just the usual $4k Intel MacBooks.. You get these features (quality control, user testing, system testing) if you have Apple Silicon..
 
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they work on a basis of publish and be damned, it had to come out because the silicon was made available. whether it was actually ready or not is moot.
 
Weird stuff. Arrow keys work on my 16" MBP but do not work on my wife's iMac.

And shift select doesn't work on either.

UPDATE: I noticed that on my MBP, I had:

System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Shortcuts --> Use navigation to move focus between controls

Turned OFF (unchecked)

My wife's iMac it was ON.
 
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they probably disabled the functionality because it's going to thrash those poor Intel processors... or, maybe they just didn't bother checking.
 
4nthony said:
Weird stuff. Arrow keys work on my 16" MBP but do not work on my wife's iMac.

And shift select doesn't work on either.

UPDATE: I noticed that on my MBP, I had:

System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Use navigation to move focus between controls

Turned OFF (unchecked)

My wife's iMac it was ON.
Click to expand...
Ok I must be blind. Where is this setting? See attached screenshot.

Screen Shot 2020-11-16 at 1.51.40 PM.png
 
JonDigital said:
You're really not helping in this discussion.
Click to expand...
what is there to say? they're sending out software that doesn't work and they don't have any quality assurance going on. and as time is join on it's getting worse, not better. this gear costs a lot of money and I expect them to do their best to ensure I don't have these problems. I've been using Macs for nearly 20 years and I been through one architecture change already. the last time I remember it going better.
 
4nthony said:
Weird stuff. Arrow keys work on my 16" MBP but do not work on my wife's iMac.

And shift select doesn't work on either.

UPDATE: I noticed that on my MBP, I had:

System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Use navigation to move focus between controls

Turned OFF (unchecked)

My wife's iMac it was ON.
Click to expand...
@JonDigital and I don't have that option either (MBP 16")
 
Collywobbles said:
isn't that the tab key? it actually states that underneath, tab and shift tab
Click to expand...
Whatever it is, it allowed me to use the arrow keys in iMessage, which is the topic of this thread.


JonDigital said:
That seemed to do the trick. I wonder if that was always unchecked in Catalina and it came checked out of the box after upgrading to Big Sur.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I used to keep it checked in Catalina but only unchecked it because it caused a problem with the version of SketchUp I'm using.

In a clean installation of Catalina -- I recently wiped and reinstalled it on an old Mac Mini -- it is unchecked by default.
 
4nthony said:
Whatever it is, it allowed me to use the arrow keys in iMessage, which is the topic of this thread.




I used to keep it checked in Catalina but only unchecked it because it caused a problem with the version of SketchUp I'm using.

In a clean installation of Catalina -- I recently wiped and reinstalled it on an old Mac Mini -- it is unchecked by default.
Click to expand...
Ok great. Thanks so much for adding your fix to the thread!!
 
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Unchecking Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls did the trick for me. Must just be a bug that only occurs when that is enabled.

Thanks 4nthony!
 
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joelisfar said:
Unchecking Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls did the trick for me. Must just be a bug that only occurs when that is enabled.

Thanks 4nthony!
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that it will disable the ability to tab between all controls. For example, you can tab between text boxes and lists but you won't be able to tab and give focus to buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, etc.

You can test this by going to the preferences pane where this setting lives, turning it on or off, and tabbing around. With it off, only a few controls will receive focus. Turn it on and you'll notice buttons, checkboxes, tabbed control items, etc. will all get focus as you tab through.
 
Someone have reported it to Apple? Hoping for a fix in Big Sur 11.1. Quite irritating bug. Quality control anyone? 🤔🤡
 
One of my iMacs has the arrow keys working iMessage and the other doesn't. The "Use keyboard navigation" setting did the trick for me too.

What's more - not only did the arrow keys not work, but if I started a new message, then start typing a name or number to find in my contacts and press ENTER to select from the contacts displayed, the contact is not selected and the search string I typed is blanked out.
 
I have a 16" Macbook Pro. Not using dual monitors. I have the same issue.

My "use keyboard navigation" option was unchecked. I checked it. No change. Put it back to unchecked. No change. Did not fix anything.

The workaround at the site duncanjasmith linked to (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252043513) works, but it is a partial fix only.

The shortcuts "ctrl + b" (backwards) and "ctrl + f" (forwards) work in Big Sur. You can use BetterTouchTool to remap the arrow keys to ctrl + f and ctrl + b only in the Messages app.

But, is there really no true fix? This is really affecting me all day long. And it's an embarrassing bug. Seems like it should be addressed ASAP.
 
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