Maya randomly locks me out of selection?
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As I'm modelling this occasionally happens. Some days I can go 10 hours without running into it, but other days it pops up every 5 minutes. I either need to completely close my file and create a new one, which sometimes resets it or, more commonly, close Maya entirely and restart it, upon which the problem is usually gone, though sometimes I have restart several times before it's back to normal. It's so random that it I've eliminated the possibility of it being tied to a particular action or key since it can happen 10 seconds into editing a scene, or before I've even opened a new scene and edited anything, but I'm at the end of my rope here, and it's incredibly annoying. At some point, I'll have a task that requires me to drag a tool - most commonly, the movement, scale or rotation tools, where I need to drag the widget pieces to edit the selection or model - and instead of letting me drag the thing normally, Maya pulls up a new menu entirely. Resetting the tool doesn't help at all, it's like the program somehow replaces the drag function with some random new menu. At this point it sometimes, but not always, also messes up my selection abilities; I can click a model listed in the outliner or UI like "file" at the top, but not models in the scene or certain tools. There are a few different menus I've seen pop up, none of which I've intentionally used elsewhere before (images attached). I'm running Maya 2019 on a Window 10 MSI GE72 2QC Apache laptop, but I've had this issue on another computer as well. Any ideas why this is happening and how to prevent or disable this idiocy? It's really, incredibly frustrating to have to start and stop and close and reopen the program every 5 minutes just because it locks me out of basic transform functions. Sorry for the image quality, I had to take photos of the screen from my phone because of the drag functionality involved.
Replies
These are called marking menus, and they're context sensitive, and come up when certain keys are pressed in conjunction with certain mouse buttons being pressed.
Maybe you have sticky keys enabled accidentally? It's a Windows level feature that keeps modifier keys pressed even when you're not holding them.
I'd also say it's possible you have a stuck key, but you said it happens on another computer so that can't be it, unless you're using the same keyboard? Do you have common software installed on each machine, maybe AutoHotkey or PowerToys?
Obviously the menu's themselves aren't bugs, or trying to prevent you from doing what you're doing. Something you're doing (or rather, your PC's are doing) is summoning them.
@Axi5 I've disabled sticky keys before, so it should be currently turned off, since it tends to freak out over shift use in Photoshop. Like you said, I've seen this happen on two different computers, so the keyboard isn't an issue. My laptop is here, but the other computer was a PC in another state so absolutely not the same keyboard or even the same hardware, not even the same version of Maya (two different 2019 versions), though they were both windows 10. I also type quite frequently, and haven't noticed any sticky keys or issues anywhere else but Maya, and if a key was being set off unexpectedly or sticking and repeating, it should show up in other programs, especially since I use far more of the keyboard typing than using Maya, where I'm mostly using the mouse.
Thank you both for your input, I've just been trying to test this with no luck, so it's definitely not a key stroke, a button being held down, a keyboard issue or a command or shortcut, unless Maya is capable of randomly setting off unprompted commands/shortcuts in the background with no warning, no visual cue, no key commands or input and doing so instantaneously at the start of a new file (which, if so, sounds like a bad bug? But I've reinstalled Maya before, and bugs usually come with error messages or some form of data, and this doesn't that I can find). The part I find most frustrating is how sometimes, "new file" resets the issue and other times, I completely close and restart Maya and the drag issue is still there in the new program's default, empty scene before I do anything. It seems like those two should be mutually exclusive; like if it's activating a tool, "new scene" should always reset it every time as it resets the mouse, or if it's some sort of internal shortcut or setting, restarting Maya should always fix it. But maybe I'm missing something about how Maya works, idk.
I also have this problem now it's so annoying it happens randomly but if you try to select in wireframe mode it works and also in x-ray mode. it's just that it somehow doesn't work in object mode. if you find any solution please share.