marking menus and space bar behavior on a Mac in 2018

[Anonymous]

I have recently moved to using a Macbook Pro on a daily basis.  I have Maya 2018.1 loaded.  I have 2 issues that I would like to get some feedback on. 

1.  I have had multiple occasions where tapping the space bar to flip back and forth between my windows fails to function.

2.  When using my rmb to get to the marking menus, I will get a "flash" where the cursor moves to the extreme right of my screen, even though I haven't moved the mouse, select one of the menus 2 levels deep and then apply the selection.  It has caused the file to lock up on occasion, it doesn't happen every time, but it will happen every 10 - 12 times I press the RMB.  When I'm polymodeling, trying to access those menus, it's very disruptive.

Help!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous and welcome to the community!

Unfortunately these issue can be somewhat tough to reproduce.

I just tried doing both the steps you provided and wasn't able to reproduce the issue.

Do you mind posting your Macs specs so I can make sure there aren't any compatibility issues with 2018?

Also, while I understand it may be hard to capture, could you possibly make a video of your issue and post it here?

If you need a video capturing program, Screencast is a great option that we use here at Autodesk

Please let me know if anything changes!

[Anonymous]

Sean Here are my machine specs.

MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2017

3.1 ghz intel core i7

16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

Radeon Pro 560 4096 MB

Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MB

I am running with the laptop screen and a HP Z27 monitor.  Since it's the new macbook, I have to run a USB-c Dongle to connect all my external devices.

I took a quicktime video of the marking menu issue. The video is a few minutes long.  You will notice that when I RMB, (I am not moving when pressing the rmb) will drift downward in the menu.  Right toward the end of the video you will see when I rmb, and I get a line that draws out to the bottom right corner.

I tried using screen cast, but the program would quit running after I would make one video, and wouldn't launch unless I went to the activity monitor to kill the process and then re-launch it.  So I went with quicktime, which was large, then had to downres it so it would upload. 

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Thank you for taking the time to post the video! Also sorry to hear screencast gave you some issues I've never heard of that happening before 

As for your issue. unfortunately I'm not noticing anything too out of the ordinary. The marking menus seem to be functioning as intended however the one thing I did notice was the line that appeared at the end of the video after you toggled off quad draw.

I wonder if its possible that this is happening because you are going from your laptop to a monitor. If you stop using the monitor and use just the macbook screen does this still happen to you?

Let me know if anything changes!

[Anonymous]

I unplugged my external monitor and worked only with my laptop.  I get the same line that draws out when I hit the RMB.

I use a lot of quad draw.  When that is on, I get the line that you saw in the video more often.

Is it a new functionality that the MM is trying to predict what I am trying to do next? 

For example. 

Create any poly object in the scene.

RMB + hold, select face from MM

lmb to select face.

shift + rmb and my MM is already pre-selecting the "extrude face" command and I haven't moved down at all.  Other times it is pre-selecting a few more spaces down.  The video I sent you yesterday shows that.  It's acting like it's adding the down movements together each time I RMB click.

[sean.heasley · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous

Ah ok I think I understand your issue. You're noticing the menus appearing almost higher every time you click so it looks like your mouse is already sitting on extrude face instead of in the center.

If this is what you're talking about, this happens because Maya readjusts the menus so they appear in their entirety on the screen no matter where your mouse is. Therefore if you right click at the bottom of the viewport for example, your mouse will appear much lower on the menu instead of in the middle.

Please let me know if this is the information you were looking for. However if this does not solve your issue please let me know what I missed and I'll be happy to help you further!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Hey Sean,
Ok, so that solved the drifting up issue that I was seeing. I am able to reproduce the line flash and selection that you saw in the video.

Create a poly object in the scene.
Make it live.
Go to the modeling toolkit and select quad draw.
Create some basic quads with the quad draw tool.
Click off the quad draw tool from the tool kit.
Select your new mesh as an object
Re pick on quad draw
Place the cursor in the modeling window then press and hold the RMB
The line shoots to the Quad Draw tool each time.

If I repeat this same thing a few times I have had that line turn into a spiderweb, then settle in some random MM selection.

[sean.heasley · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous

Thank you for the in depth reproduce able steps!

I was able to get the same line to appear as you however I wasn't able to reproduce the "spider-web" issue.

While I can see this being a bit annoying, I don't think this is a bug.

If you're using the Quad Draw tool you generally wouldn't be holding down right click for anything until you are finished using the Quad Draw tool. So its possible that the line is appearing just to show you or remind you even that you are using the Quad Draw tool.

It is strange though that this is only on Mac and not Windows. Unfortunately I don't believe there is a workaround for this but I'll check with our dev team if this is a known issue.

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

I'm just checking in again to see if you need more help with this. Did the information I provided yesterday help you understand why you're seeing the line when using the Quad Draw tool?

If so, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

[Anonymous]

Sean,

I was able to get Screencast to work and capture the spacebar problems that I am having.  I am tapping the spacebar to get back and forth between my perspective and ortho windows, and it is not working.  You can see from the window that I am tapping the spacebar, and it's not working.

Please let me know if you need more info.

Thanks,

Russ

Model Identifier:    MacBookPro14,3
  Processor Name:    Intel Core i7
  Processor Speed:    3.1 GHz
  Number of Processors:    1
  Total Number of Cores:    4
  L2 Cache (per Core):    256 KB
  L3 Cache:    8 MB
  Memory:    16 GB
  Boot ROM Version:    MBP143.0167.B00
  SMC Version (system):    2.45f0

[Anonymous]

Here is the Screencast.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for coming back with the screencast of your issue!

This is extremely unusual and I haven't been able to reproduce it on my machine 

Out of curiosity, does this happen on a fresh empty scene of Maya or only with the scene you had open in the video?

Please let me know if anything changes!

[Anonymous]

Sean,
It takes more than a fresh scene to get it going, but once it starts, I can create a new scene and the behavior will continue till I close down Maya, or even restart the machine to get it to go away.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Hmmm that is interesting.

I'm curious if the issue is related to something in the scene or if its something on your machine. Does this only happen when you are connected to your external monitor or does it happen on your laptop as well?

Are there any steps to reproduce this issue so I can try and see the issue on my Mac?

[Anonymous]

I can disconnect the second monitor and it will behave the same way once it starts to happen.
I am usually retopoing a foot form. Using quad draw. After about 20 minutes or so it will start to happen.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Can you tell if it's only happening when using Quad Draw or if it occurs while just modeling, animating or doing anything else in Maya?

Trying to narrow down what could be causing this issue cause it seems to be something with the Quad Draw tool on Mac.

[Anonymous]

I’m heading to AU today. When I get a chance, I will try to do some modeling to see if I can get it to happen again.

I do still get that RMB click out to the quad draw tool, even though I have clicked it off and am not using it any more.

[Anonymous]

Is this what was/is happening to you?

IF yes, did you find any solution to this?

**link to my post in LT forum.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-lt/ct-p/4050

[Anonymous]

I have the same issue with "Spacebar" shortcut for changing the viewport. It works and fails completely randomly. Have you managed to figure out what was the issue and fix it? As the solutions provided in this or other similar threads doesn't seem to be working for anyone. 

I'm on Maya 2018.4 and also macbook pro.