Left Click Marking Menu

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to Maya LT so please forgive me for this noobie question. I'm following the Autodesk advanced character modeling tutorial series on YouTube and I've encountered an issue. Every time I click my left mouse button a marking menu appears that prohibits me from manipulating the mesh. The only way I can manipulate the mesh is if I use my middle mouse button. I'm not sure how to disable this. Attached is a screenshot. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks! 

- AJ

[Carlos_Carpintero]

Hello Aamerj,

I don't know if you are still having the issue, but from the looks of it, your W key is stuck.  That particular marking menu comes up when you hold down the W key and left click.

Verify that your keys are not stuck and try again to left-click select your object.

Regards,

Carlos

[Anonymous]

Hi Carlos,

Thanks for the reply. It seems that when I use the W/E/R shortcut keys that menu appears and gets stuck. I have resorted to using the buttons instead of the shortcuts. A little annoying, but it works. 

Thanks again,

AJ

[Anonymous]

so, old post,but I dont want to resort to using the buttons. Whenever I want to use the rotate, or scale tools (accessed by pressing e, or r), but then when I use left mouse button to rotate or scale the object, this marking menu shows up. (pictured)

I am also doing things to my maya preferences, setting up personal marking menus and shortcuts. I'd appreciate not resetting all of my settings. I'd like to identify the problem, fix it, and get back to modeling 🙂

Thanks!

[Carlos_Carpintero]

Hello ejtheartist,

Interesting.  That marking menu in the pic is the menu that is shown when you hold down the E key and then left click in the viewport.  So it's like LT is reading your left mouse click like you are doing a button hold at the same time.

Does it happen with the move tool (w key)?

What kind of changes are you making to your preferences? 

Would it be possible for you to zip your prefs and send them to me?  We would have the same environment.  If you feel comfortable doing this, you can send them to me at carlos.carpintero@autodesk.com

Otherwise, if you give some instructions on what you changed, I can try and do the same on my end.

Regards,

Carlos

[Anonymous]

Hi Carlos,

I'm not sure if I fixed it correctly, but for some reason my hotkeys were
set the same as some toggle menu. I fixed the issue, but it was weird.

Thanks!
Elise

[Carlos_Carpintero]

Hi Elise,

Great, glad to hear you resolved your issue.

All the best,

Carlols

[Anonymous]

i have exactly the same problem in maya 2017 hotfix1

i still cannot understand but the left mous button sto working and activate that menu.

another issue i have found is that if i double click on a shader maya crash.

i think you d better put out a new hotfix, couse some issues are really annoying

mat

[kgkraeer]

Just a heads-up for any engineers still watching this thread - this is still happening in Maya 2016 with all the Service packs installed, as of February, 2017. What happens is, quite often I press "W", and then click to move a model, but get the marking menu instead. The workaround was to press "W" again, making sure that's the only thing pressed, and then click to move. It's fairly annoying but fix-able.

The fix is similar to the one posted above, specifically, you need to go into the hotkey Editor, and change the W,E,R hotkeys. By default, they are set to

TranslateToolWithSnapMarkingMenu

RotateToolWithSnapMarkingMenu

ScaleToolWithSnapMarkingMenu

respectively. At least I believe that's right - go into "Edit hotkeys for:" and pick 'Other Items'. Scroll down to "Marking Menus" rollout and open it up. You'll find the W,E,R keys set up here with some sort of Marking Menu notation. I removed the bindings in this rollout, then searched by Runtime Command in the dropdown at the bottom of the list for each of these:

MoveTool

RotateTool

ScaleTool

and set those up to be W,E,R. All fixed. It'd be nice to have this set up this way in the next service pack/versions of Maya. If it's intentional - I'd say it's a bizarre change to fundamental functionality that should, at the very least, be explained in a pop-up right up front, because it feels like a bug.

[lucericr]

---

@kgkraeer wrote:
[...]

respectively. At least I believe that's right - go into "Edit hotkeys for:" and pick 'Other Items'. Scroll down to "Marking Menus" rollout and open it up. You'll find the W,E,R keys set up here with some sort of Marking Menu notation. I removed the bindings in this rollout, then searched by Runtime Command in the dropdown at the bottom of the list for each of these:

MoveTool

RotateTool

ScaleTool

and set those up to be W,E,R. All fixed. It'd be nice to have this set up this way in the next service pack/versions of Maya. If it's intentional - I'd say it's a bizarre change to fundamental functionality that should, at the very least, be explained in a pop-up right up front, because it feels like a bug.

---

That removes marking menus for transform tools, so it's not a general good fix - unless you never use them.

There are cases where you can get making menu always coming up when you click without holding down any of Q,W,E or R.  We believe we stamped out most of the these issues in the latest version of Maya 2017.    Normally you should be able to get out of it by pressing and release any tool key like Q. The action of releasing one of the Q,W,E, or R keys dismisses the marking menu.

[buffaloe]

I am also currently running into this problem with marking menus loading up when I'm not holding anything down.  While I'm glad that there's a workaround by disabling the hotkeys, I do actually use the marking menus for the transform tools quite often, so I don't want to lose them.  Is there a fix for this issue?  

[Carlos_Carpintero]

Hi buffaloe,

If you haven't done so yet, download Maya/Maya LT 2018, lots of fixes were put in dealing with those errors in particular.  However, if you still have problems after upgrading to 2018, please let us know we are very interested in knowing about them.

Regards,

Carlos

[buffaloe]

I'm not looking to change Maya again as I've just upgraded to 2017 and it's already pretty buggy, so I certainly don't want to test out 2018 yet.  Also, the first post on this issue was from 2015, it was reported by another user on this thread that he was having issues with Maya 2016 and I'm seeing it now in Maya 2017.  I'm a bit skeptical that 2018 is the fix, nor should it be... this is pretty basic functionality.  

[lucericr]

---

@buffaloe wrote:

I'm not looking to change Maya again as I've just upgraded to 2017 and it's already pretty buggy, so I certainly don't want to test out 2018 yet.  Also, the first post on this issue was from 2015, it was reported by another user on this thread that he was having issues with Maya 2016 and I'm seeing it now in Maya 2017.  I'm a bit skeptical that 2018 is the fix, nor should it be... this is pretty basic functionality.  

---

I don't know if 2018 will fix your issue -- though you should get on the 2017 LT update 4 if you aren't already to make sure you've got the latest and greatest.  

Try to see in which circumstance it occurs, as there are different fixes I could track down.  On the Mac, for example, having the hypershade up while working rapidly with the marking menu can cause an issue (fixed in 2018), and there is a documented limitations with the Keyframe Menu getting stuck.  There used to be a trivial way to get into that state with Maya 2015 but it was fixed years ago.  In the recent versions of Maya, it should be difficult to get into that state - and trivial to get out of it, by simply pressing and release any of w,e or r.

The way the marking menu works, there is a command on the key press to create the menu, and another command on the key release to clear the menu. Some users have commonlu gotten into stuck menus by using a custom keymap that wasn't set with the release command, but there were genuine ways in which Maya doesn't get the key release and therefore the command that clears the menu isn't called.  We've been addressing these as we find them.  

[buffaloe]

I usually use the marking menus by holding W, E or R and left clicking, but there are times when I'm not using marking menus at all and the marking menu will come up when I hit W, E or R by themselves.  I try hitting escape to get out of it, I try going back to Q and then W, E or R but the marking menu won't go away until I switch to another tool.  I am using Windows 10 and actually I'm using regular Maya with all 4 service packs...I just realized this was the LT forum but it seems like they have similar issues.  I can post this in the Maya forum if that's the better way to go.  

[lucericr]

---

@buffaloe wrote:

I usually use the marking menus by holding W, E or R and left clicking, but there are times when I'm not using marking menus at all and the marking menu will come up when I hit W, E or R by themselves.  I try hitting escape to get out of it, I try going back to Q and then W, E or R but the marking menu won't go away until I switch to another tool.  I am using Windows 10 and actually I'm using regular Maya with all 4 service packs...I just realized this was the LT forum but it seems like they have similar issues.  I can post this in the Maya forum if that's the better way to go.  

---

I know what you're saying, but there is some steps that you're doing or in your setup that's causing it and we have to get to that to narrow the root cause and see if it's fixed in 2018.

Pressing Escape or pressing the buttons on the toolbar won't clear a marking menu, these buttons do not have any code to do that.

It's only the release command that is executed when you release the W,E,R keys (or other keys with marking menus)  that clear a menu.

If you press and release W and it doesn't clear the menu, it probably means that something is "eating" the key release message from Maya.  I gave you one example where this can happen (on the mac with the node editor or hypershade).  Maybe there is something else your workspace that's causing and issue.  Look around and try some things the next time it occurs, and report back here.

I think you can manually run the mel command "MarkingMenuPopDown" to clear the menu.

[buffaloe]

I've been trying to get it to repro reliably to be able to tell you guys what's causing it but have had no luck so far.  I will definitely send that if I'm able to get that for you.  I have tried hitting the same keys and releasing them again which does close the menu, but when i hit W, E or R again with nothing else selected and no buttons being held, the marking menu comes back instead of my transform tool until I switch to another tool.  I do have some custom hotkeys set up and custom preferences.  I could send those if you think it would be of any use?    

[Anonymous]

I was having this issue and just wanted to post the cause and solution for my case.

I had assigned a custom script to replace the marking menu for the W and E keys. I decided to revert back to the default functionality so I reassigned in the hotkey editor. The marking menu showed up fine but would then show up while clicking without pressing the W or E key.  Looking in the hotkey editor the mapping for the key release was blank, I re-assigned, saved, closed. Same result. Back in the hotkey editor the release mapping was again blank.

The fix for me:

1. Close Maya
2. Go to the prefs>hotkeys folder
3. Open your hotkey .mel file in a text editor
4. Look for the hotkey in question (There may be a pair of quotations with nothing in between, this is why the hotkey isn't working)
5. Manually delete the hotkey entry, save and reopen Maya

This should return the hotkey to its default functionality

[amalkj003]

I started pressing q,w,e,r repeatedly for few times and it solved the problem.

[Anonymous]

I'm also having this in Maya 2019 . It still hasn't been fixed.  Its really weird. I haven't been playing with the hotkey editor nor am I hitting the W, E, or R buttons when it occurs for me. I'm getting it when holding alt and orbiting around my obj, so in other words, I move the manipulator and then orbit the camera or dolly in or out and then go to move the manipulator again and I start getting the menu on my left mouse click. Its random when it happens. The only way to make it stop, other then quitting out Maya altogether, is by manually clicking off the move tool to the selection tool and then back.