Shortcuts are lost everyday

SketchUp Pro
1

I have never had a problem with managing shortcuts for either Sketchup or Layout until this 2022 version. Now on a daily basis I lose some of my shortcut settings. I shutdown every night and in the morning some of my key commands no longer work. This seems to be somewhat random; some shortcuts still exist and others do not.

Anybody got any suggestions? Do I need to reinstall the software again, or is this related to the randomly-occurring sign-in issue that I continue to experience?

Thank you in advance.

2

Do you actually quit SketchUp?
[menu] SketchUp > Quit

3

Yes, I quit every application, saving all of the documents, then shutdown. Just now I’ve had a reoccurrence of the distance issue that I had several weeks ago (Sketchup reverts to inches no matter what I enter for a measurement when drawing something - I enter 16’ and I get 16"), so now I have to go back and figure out what the answer was to that particular problem. I am not a fan of this version.

4

Sounds like a language and/or region/keyboard setting.
What is the language version of SketchUp?
What is your language setting of the OS?
(Are there more)
What region are you in?
Do you have other keyboards to choose from?

5

The language setting is English(US)-primary, it should be the English version of Sketchup as well. Region is United States. I’m in New England. These shortcuts do work some some are randomly lost.

The keyboard is wireless and I often use it that way, but I can plug it in to see if that makes a difference for some reason. I can try a different keyboard as well.

6

Did you install it by right clicking and selecting “install as administrator “?
This is NOT the same as being an administrator.
It could be that your settings are stored temporarily rather than permanently as a result.
You can repair the installation without uninstalling/reinstalling by selecting the repair option during installation.

7

If you check your SketchUp preferences are your shortcuts still registered, or are they gone? The answer is relevant to tracking down whether this is a keyboard issue or something else.

Did you eject the installer dmg after installing SketchUp? Running from the dmg will cause strange issues such as this.

8

I am not running from the dmg, but the .dmg is still on my hard drive. The shortcuts have reverted to those shipped with the software(Layout). My specific shortcuts are gone (Layout). My Sketchup shortcuts are intact today.

9

I do not know if I installed the software as an admin. So are you saying that I can reinstall using the “right click” method without uninstalling first?

10

That’s an option on Windows, not on Mac.

11

I didn’t realize you’re on a Mac, sorry

12

On a MAC you must ‘install’ SketchUp. [ignore the stuff about ‘run as admin…’ - that’s Windows only]
Do not ‘run’ it directly from its DMG [that’s the installer] - run it from the installed icon after the installation…
If it’s properly installed you Shortcuts etc should be saved properly.
Perhaps some of your permissions are adrift - perhaps an experienced MAC user can chip-in…

13

Next step is to check whether the shortcuts are being recorded in the preferences when LayOut quits. Set some shortcuts and then quit LayOut. The shortcuts should then be contained in folder

~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2022/Layout/

in the file layout.private.json

Your user ~/Library is normally hidden by Finder (it is NOT the same as the global /Library folder!). You can get there by the Finder’s Go->Go to Folder menu item by typing the path into its dialog (make sure to include the right capitalization and spaces). The ~ is just traditional shorthand for /Users/yourusername/ folder, where yourusername is replaced by your macOs login name. You can also type the full string explicitly.

First look at the json file’s info (right click on it in Finder and choose Get Info) and see whether it was updated the last time you ran LayOut. If not, there is a problem writing to that file, most likely with folder or file permissions, so check them in that same info panel.

If the file was updated, view it with any text editor (or just select it and tap the space bar to get a text view). Scroll down until you find a section labeled “shortcuts.dictionary”. This contains a list of all the shortcuts LayOut knows about. Each shortcut gets three lines akin to:

"20_action": "pasteToCurrentLayer:",
"20_key": 108,
"20_modifier": 262144,

The action string should be similar to the LayOut command you set a shortcut for (the exact strings differ between the Preferences Shortcuts panel and the internal form shown in the json, but they correspond closely enough that you should be able to understand them). The key and modifier values will be the Mac internal codes for whatever keychord you set for the shortcut - don’t worry about the specific values, at this point you just want to make sure they are there.

If those lines are not present in the json, there is a problem writing to the file as LayOut quits. If they are present, there is a problem reading the file as LayOut launches. Either of these is most likely the result of file or folder permissions.

Edit: one further thought - if you are trying to set shortcuts that include the command key, they won’t stick because they are preempted by macOS and cleared every time LayOut launches.

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