January 14, 2011 / Gary

Dumbest Software Interaction Yet

So I’m hardcore kicking out some awesome mockups in Adobe Illustrator, when I notice that my modifier keys aren’t working properly. When I click-drag something, holding down the option key should make a copy. It’s not. If I click-drag and hold down the shift key, it should constrain the angle of the drag. It’s not.

What sorcery is this?

The pat answer on the Adobe forums is that some other process or program is running which maintains a connection to the Internet, which in turn causes the Operating System to disable these modifier keys under the banner of security. Now that sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.

But when I shut down Firefox & bounced Illustrator, everything returned to normal.

WTF?