I am a German User, but i am using a US Keyboard and the US Extended Keyboard Layout. Sometimes I need to use German Umlauts, and I usually rely on the "press and hold for accented characters" feature of OS X.
However, this is not always available. I cant seem to find a pattern in this behavior. Sometimes I log in, and it works flawlessly, sometimes it doesn't work at all and just repeats the character I press for a long time.
I switched to different keyboard layouts (US, US Extended, US International PC) and different "Preferred Languages" in the "Language and Region" settings.
I also tried the defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true setting, but also no luck.
I have the same problem on different Macs; at work and at home.
How do I configure this feature correctly?
Best Answer
When it stops working, does
ps -ef|grep PressAndHoldinclude a line for/System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/MacOS/PressAndHold? If it doesn't, try to runopen -a PressAndHold. Or if it does,killall PressAndHold;open -a PressAndHoldmight also be worth a shot.You could also try to delete
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist. Normallydefaults read com.apple.HIToolboxshould showcom.apple.PressAndHoldunderAppleEnabledInputSourcesandAppleSelectedInputSources.