2015 keyboard shortcuts stop working

[Anonymous]

Hey gang,

A few of my guys are experiencing this problem since switching over to Max 2015.

They'll be working away and all of a sudden the keyboard shortcut commands for EVERYTHING will become disabled. When I say everything I mean everything. T for Top, F9 for Render, C for Camera etc. etc. You get the idea.

It's not the Keyboard Override toggle and it's impossible to work out what it is that might kick it off.

A Max restart fixes things.

Have any of youz experienced this or do you have any ideas that might help us?

Many thanks for any help!

[Anonymous]

Praise the sun!

I found the solution; I do not know why but something triggered active to be off!

[ionkud]

Try going to customize > customize user interface > keyboard tab and make sure that the "active" checkbox next to the "group" dropdown menu is checked.

[naxos]

that does not solve the problem here...

Bad thing to read that you all had this problem with max 2015...

And they did not found any fix, because i have it on max 2016...

On my system, i have 3dsmax 2014 still installed, and 2016 fresh new install, with SP1.

OS is win 8.1 pro, and i've checked also about KB settings in OS...

Drive me crazy !!!

[Anonymous]

Same problem here, max 2015

Suddenly the shortcuts like W+alt maximise viewport toggle,

or viewports toggles like T for Top wont work anymore.

Its totaly random when this happens.

Group main menu is set too active.

So i dont understand why this should happen.

And its very annoying, when things dont work like you expect them too.

[Anonymous]

Ok i have found a solution?? maybe here

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php?t-1209722.html

[Anonymous]

My keyboard shortcuts do not work periodically. This happens in 2014, 2016 and 2017 max. Suddenly they stop working. I just re-load all your hotkeys, it helps.
But this is not convenient and not at all correct. it infuriates.

Who will help?

[Anonymous]

Had today the same issue
Writing some text in the layer search and then simply delete it again will fix it

[Anonymous]

Any updates on fixes, I had the middle mouse button and alt stop working for rotation. Obviously this kills work flow big time. 

[smartin193]

Again, lets revisit this issue. Noted that I have read some of the past posts concerning this issue. All posted solutions are bogus for me. Nothing has worked regarding the "solutions". Has AD posted a hot fix? If so I have yet to find it. Here we are getting ready for 2017 and 2016 isn't ready for prime time. Oh yes, forgot, Alt X works. F4 and others ZERO. I don't believe that AD really gives a ****.

New Puget computer with Xeon, 32 gigs Ram, Nvidia 970.

Win 7, all service packs for OS and for Max.

Max 1 thru 2016 registered owner

Set Designer, Master Scenic Artist, Teacher 

[Anonymous]

This happens again and again. Works - rebooted the max, no longer works. The infamous bug.

[nate]

Been having this same problem as well, very random when it pops up but reading this thread I saw mention of the scene explorer possibly causing it. Today it happened again, and I looked through the scene explorer and noticed in DISPLAY that AUTO-EXPAND TO SELECTION was on and I don't think it normally is. I turned it off and shortcuts all immediately started working. Not sure that is an actual fix, but maybe its a hint of some sort. I've only done it the once a minute ago...but I'm posting in case maybe it'll help...cause this bug is intolerable when it happens.

EDIT - Max 2017 SP1

[Anonymous]

hello gang i have the same problem but its not just restart and over ride toggle problem. i tried all options but inv vain . can any body solved this. even top view ormaterial shorcuts M ARE NOT WORKING. THANKZ.....

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello everyone,

I've read up on this thread and I think I am up to speed.  I can't seem to get this issue to appear however.  It seems to be a hit or miss thing, possibly related to plugins or.. something.  

I want to repro this but after a couple hours of trying I am unable to.  If anyone can list a reliable repro step I will happily relog this into the system with those steps.  I may have clicked in the wrong order.  

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

I can say this is hit or miss with me but it happens 90% of the time on Widows 7. My laptop is running Windows 10 and I have not seen this issue happen but only once. When it did I had to remove the driver for my mouse and keyboard and reboot. If I can document a repo I will try to do so. I can say that this often happens after the OS goes into Sleep mode and comes back. Reboots do not often do any good in the fix.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

Thank you for the update.  Sleep mode is something I wouldn't have tested before, so I will give it a shot here this weekend.  Appreciate the tip.  If anyone else has a hunch or anything, please share and I'll try to repro.  

Best Regards,

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

I spent a couple hours this weekend trying sleep mode and things of that nature with no luck.  

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

What i usually do, is loading a preset ui setting.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-F4558A57-41EE-4724-8453-964ABF1FF37E

restart.

and then again load my custom one.

most of the time it works for getting my keyboard shortcuts working again

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

Interesting.  Thank you for sharing that info.

Best Regards,

[Bill_Sands]

Hi All,

I've not actually had the problem that was originally posted here for a very long time, and thought it had been fixed! Although I do notice that my coordinate system custom shortcuts stop working now and then: "alt, 1" for world, "alt, 2" for local, "alt, 3" for grid... etc. but I suspect that is something to do with using the "alt" key for a shortcut. It works 98% of the time though.

However I do have a very similar problem that includes the loss of all custom shortcuts. Also, I think I know how this one is triggered, which may or may not have anything to do with the other problem. Here's how it's done:

Max 2016 (I can't honestly remember if it works on older versions, but think it does as it's bugged me for a very long time) has a button locked to the task bar in Windows 7, which I use to open Max. As normal, I just press the button to open the program. However, if I press the button again too soon (probably before the Max splash screen has appeared, but I'm not sure about this) this will result in Max reverting to the default configuration, and removing any customisation. At first this is only noticed by the lack of the shortcut customisation, but on a restart of Max you notice that all the window positions that had been saved have reverted to their default positions. My only fix for this is to make sure I have all my customisation files saved elsewhere for reloading after the error.

I realise that this may not help with the original problem resolution, but it might, and I thought it was worth flagging this problem up on a thread that is active with autodesk support.

My only other suggestion about the original problem is based around a shortcut for an old/removed function that opens a non-existant window, that needs to be closed before the shortcuts work again... perhaps scene states or something similar? I notice that the scene states dialogue is present in Max 2016 (haven't had the disappearing shortcuts in 2016 I don't think?), but nothing happens in Max 2015 when you try to open the scene states dialogue.

Perhaps lots of ideas, and none may be useful, but I've found that more ideas to look into are better than none.

Cheers,

Bill

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Bill_Sands,

Thank you for the update!  I also use the XP style launch bar and I know exactly what you are talking about.  The reason this happens (for better or for worse) is that when Max opens or closes it will edit the 3dsmax.ini file (and possibly a few others) as it is opening.  If another instance of Max is started too soon, it also will try to write to that file but that file is already in use.  The end result is a regeneration of the contents of the .ini file which causes what you are describing.  This can also happen if two Max instances are closed too quickly right after one another.  This is my current understanding of this issue.  

I've had some users pretty upset with this, but it is by design and therefore not a bug.  If you wait about 5 seconds that should be enough in almost all cases.  I do realize it's problematic for a lot of people and it probably needs to be updated at some point, but you can wait the 5 seconds or so, or make the .ini read only but that might cause other issues.  

Best Regards,