I commonly use the cmd-space shortcut to bring up the spotlight, but as of yesterday it no longer works. I did not knowingly update my software beforehand, I do not have any conflicts in the keyboard shortcuts (no yellow triangle), and I only have one input source.
I have done a pretty thorough search for solutions; here are some pages I have read: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6). Below are the common solutions that have not worked for me:
- Restarted the machine. No change.
- Restored the defaults on all keyboard shortcuts. No Change.
- Changed the desktop resolution. No change.
- Changed the shortcut. Spotlight works with essentially any other shortcut, but I am used to cmd-space.
- Reset the spotlight index (
sudo mdutil -E /orkillall Dock). This temporarily enables the shortcut but the problem surfaces after either closing the laptop's lid or changing the application window. - Remove the HIToolbox.plist and restart (
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist). This enables the shortcut for a couple seconds immediately after startup but then the problem resumes. - Closing applications with potentially conflicting shortcuts. I can't say with 100% certainty that I have covered everything but I have combed through my app shortcuts and closed out of anything that might be the problem. To reiterate, this was working fine until yesterday.
- First aid on the disk. No change. I assume this would fix permissions issues if there were any.
One last piece of odd behavior: I can change the shortcut from cmd+space to cmd+option+space (and everything works), but I cannot change it back to cmd+space without hitting "restore defaults". The shortcut window remains empty until I close it or hit another shortcut.
At my wits end here! Has anyone solved this before?
Best Answer
On MacOS Catalina, the issue may be caused by the
SystemUIServerprocess hanging.You can restart it by launching the command