Disappearing Snippets
We’ve received a number of reports of disappearing snippet libraries from TextExpander users. Data loss is one of the worst kinds of bugs. While we can help users restore their settings file from a backup, that’s the best we can do. We want to do better and fix this. Unfortunately, we can’t reproduce it.
If you experience this problem, you can restore your snippet library by quitting TextExpander and restoring this file from your Time Machine or other backup:
[Home]/Library/Application Support/TextExpander/Settings.textexpander
Before you re-launch TextExpander, please also send a copy of the restored file to us at textexpander@smileonmymac.com. This is especially helpful if you find the problem recurs for you. If we gather enough settings files, hopefully we’ll find one with which we can reproduce the problem. If we can reproduce it we can almost certainly fix it. In the meantime, we’re very sorry for the inconvenience.
Firefox Bug Can Disable TextExpander
TextExpander users who use Firefox sometimes find that TextExpander stops expanding. Quitting and re-launching Firefox restores TextExpander functionality. Let me explain why this is happening and ask for your help.
Firefox enables secure event input when it presents password fields. If you submit a form by pressing Return in a password field, Firefox doesn’t turn off secure event input. When secure event input is on, key loggers such as TextExpander do not receive notification of keyboard events.
You can work around this problem after the fact by closing the window which held the field or by quitting and re-launching Firefox. You can avoid this problem by submitting form fields using the Submit button rather than pressing return in a field.
There’s a bug open on the issue but its up to the Mozilla folks to adopt the fix and release an updated version of Firefox:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=556873
You can help by voting up this bug. Click on the “vote” link then register and vote for this bug. Perhaps if its priority increases, it will get noticed and addressed. Thanks!
As always, if you have comments or questions about TextExpander, let us know.
I have experienced the loss of snippets multiple times. On my machine it seems to happen when I shutdown my Mac. Luckily I am using dropbox for syncing so I can easily go back to restore my snippets.
I put in my vote for the Firefox bug. There are only 11 votes and the bug has been open since May. It’s a real shame because even though I prefer Firefox as my default browser I’m using Chrome so that I can stick with TextExpander. I hope this is resolved sooner than later…
Using dropbox as well here. Just sat down at my computer and realized that my icon wasn’t black (reverted back to the standard blue) and all my snippets were missing. Jumped into Dropbox and everything was amazing. It is odd that they disappeared, I did nothing especially different.
I put in my vote. There are a paltry 28 votes now. We’ve noticed it happening with Chrome, too. Closing chrome or closing the site with the password field will return the functionality to TE.
Chrome: just started to try it (again) as a fast alternative.
Damn, it’s been a long time I typed more than Thomas… I meant t\ – eh, it’s working again without restarting either browser.
I’ve got no idea what helped. I didn’t even close a single tab or anything.
Or, more reasonable: just visiting your forum cured the
disease.
Seriously, both 1Password and Textexpander are definite reasons to spoil Chrome… shame, it’s really fast on my old MacBook.
Kinda funny it’s never happened to me with Firefox (or very rarely perhaps).
I have to say … I’ve been using and loving TE for a couple of years now, and finally had a bit of extra money to buy a licensed copy. I’ve had no problems at all. Just licensed my copy, and now I’m only getting the “Expansion Disabled (loginwindow)” error almost all the time. Still trying to find the source of it, but it seems to be Chrome.
Had I known this, I wouldn’t have plopped down $40 yesterday, I’m sorry to say.
Most likely, something on your system is prompting you for a password. If you’re able to find that request and dismiss it, that should be the end to the problem. TextExpander does its best to identify the process but cannot always do so. For more information on secure input and how it affects your system, including all text expansion software, please see here:
http://smilesoftware.com/TextExpander/secureinput.html
Please feel free to contact us at support@smilesoftware.com for further investigation or with a refund request. We pride ourselves on fast and friendly support.
I am also having the “Expansion Disabled” bug in Chrome with Text Expander. This is really frustrating. The workaround “quit and reload” seems to work, but I also lose the half dozen or more tabs I had open when I do that, and I then must go hunting through history to restore all the research I had open in various windows and tabs. Since this is now happening in both Firefox and Chrome (as documented in the above posts) and since it has been going on for quite some time (years?), I was hoping for an update or alternative strategy to deal with this (hopefully a strategy that might not involve waiting till the next ice age for open source bug reports to be acted on)?
All best, your faithful fan, Greg Gehr.
Greg: Mozilla fixed the Firefox issue last year. Now it is only Chrome that has the bug. It is very frustrating (hey, we use Chrome too!), but it’s something that Google must fix. It affects all text expansion software and any other app that must observe keyboard input.
AAArgh, Chrome does not play nicely with TextExpander (3.4.2)! After using an expansion I can no longer type in Chrome (18.0.1025.168) and have to restart it. Anyone else have the same problem?
Typically, this means Chrome is displaying a secure text field (e.g. asking for a password). Unfortunately, sometimes it means Chrome _was_ doing so and failed to disable systemwide secure input. That would be a bug in Chrome. When we saw something similar in Firefox, it only happened if you submitted a form by pressing Return in a secure field. The workaround was to press the Submit button instead to submit the form. We’ve had trouble finding a good reproducible case in Chrome. If you’ve got one, let us know at support@smilesoftware.com. Thanks!