Emoji Picker Shortcut Not Working in MacOS Sequoia? Let’s Fix It

I was very excited to see this, because the emoji pop-up has been missing for me for a long time. Sadly, none of these methods seemed to fix it. 😥

Oh, here is a SAD update. I tried everything in this article and nothing brought it back. And then I killed WSA, and BAM!, the emoji picker is back. Restarted WSA, it wont show. Kill it, it works. I guess I need to report this as a bug, but just in case someone else comes across this, that was my issue. 😕

Update; ticket entered. ( #564116)

I played with WSA settings some more, and it seems to be related to Secure Keyboard Entry Mode. If that is on, the Emoji window is blocked from opening no matter how you try and open it (even from a menu) But if that is off, it works fine. 

It will be interesting to see what Support has to say about this. Thanks for finding this bug.

Ok, I got two answers. here is what I was told by support. Personally, I find these answer weak at best. Seriously, they know that their feature causes these issues but have done nothing to fix it, just shut off security? Oh well, one more thing against Mac support with WebRoot. SIGH! ☹️ I have to be honest, I have NEVER been told by a security company to use their product, I have to shut off parts to make my computer work as designed.  Oh well.

Here is the first answer: 
 

Update. It appears to be part of "Secure keyboard entry mode" If that is on, the emoji window is blocked. If that is unchecked, it works just fine.

Support wrote:
Hello,

Thank you for contacting Webroot Support. 

Due to the unique way in which keyboard shortcuts work on the Mac OS, the secure keyboard entry feature may prohibit shortcut functions in a variety of applications. This includes, but is not limited to, Adobe Creative Suite Products, Macro applications, or some built in features that are triggered by key combinations—such as Dictation and Speech.

This can be resolved via the following options:

Temporarily on the local machine (as needed basis):

1. On the local endpoint, click the Webroot icon located on the top right of the menu bar, then clicking “Pause Secure Keyboard Entry.”

Once activated, you will see a checkmark next to the menu option. While this is selected, Webroot SecureAnywhere will not secure keystrokes against keylogging software, though it will still be actively protecting you against infections. It is important to ensure that this function is enabled when browsing the internet—particularly on secure sites that require a username and password.

Adjusting the Mac endpoints policy in the console:
1. Create/Copy or edit the policy assigned to the MAC endpoints. For more information on creating or editing policies, <a href=https://docs.webroot.com/us/en/business/administratorguide/administratorguide.htm#1_Admin%20and%20Getting%20Started%20Guide/Policies.htm_blank">click here</a> to view our Help documentation.

2.  Disable the "Identity Shield" > "Identity Shield Enabled" = OFF

Please note that disabling the Identity Shield on a MAC will cause the Agent GUI/icon to turn red. If you wish to hide this from the end-user you will need to disable the GUI which is found in the policy under "User Interface" > "GUI" = OFF. 

Should you have any further questions or concerns, please reply to this ticket. 

Regards,
John M.
Webroot Business Support

----------------------------------------------------------

Here is the second answer:

Thank you for contacting Webroot Support. 

Due to the unique way in which keyboard shortcuts work on the Mac OS, the secure keyboard entry feature may prohibit shortcut functions in a variety of applications. This includes, but is not limited to, Adobe Creative Suite Products, Macro applications, or some built in features that are triggered by key combinations—such as Dictation and Speech.

This can be resolved by clicking the Webroot icon located on the top right of the menu bar, then clicking “Pause Secure Keyboard Entry.”

Once activated, you will see a checkmark next to the menu option. While this is selected, Webroot SecureAnywhere will not secure keystrokes against keylogging software, though it will still be actively protecting you against infections. It is important to ensure that this function is enabled when browsing the internet—particularly on secure sites that require a username and password.

Should you have any further questions or concerns, please send us a reply in the "Send another message:" section of this page.

Regards,

The Webroot Support Team

WoW! When it comes to WSA for Mac, Webroot seems to be “Behind the 8 Ball” all the time. Sad. ☹️

​@MajorHavoc , This response from Support has always been to "Pause the Secure Keyboard Entry," since 2014-2015 around that time. When Wanderingbug was in charge of the Mac Support. I'm just shocked that this is still is a problem after all these years. 

Thank you for bringing to our attention by contacting Webroot Support. I haven't ran Webroot on my iMac for many years especially with my 2021 year old Mac running the lastest Mac OS. Sequoia 15.3.2. 

WSA for mac worked great when I was running macOS El Capitan and High Sierra. I started running into problems when I upgraded to macOS Mojave. I never installed WSA on what I’m running now, macOS Catalina (10). I can only go as far as macOS Monterey (12) on this computer and WSA only covers macOS 13,14 &15. Oh Well!

Yes, I still have my old old Mac running El Capitan. I was running Webroot Beta for many years. Then alot of glitches with Backup that I had to stop. Good ol days though.

That's a shame ​@ProTruckDriver. That's one reason I bought a refurbished 2021 27 in iMac. Alot of programs like Microsoft Office wouldn't update anymore.

Right now I just don't want to risk running Webroot on it. Sorry, I got this thread off topic.🤭

I agree, up until the Sonoma, release (one past Ventura), things worked fairly well, albeit, with the same old poor user interface issues that are still there today.

However, I do not recall any major update since the OS Ventura, and in Sonoma and now Sequoia things are bad. 

I realize being an anti-virus software maker is not simple, especially in systems as complicated as the Mac or Windows. But as you know, I see updates here for Windows quite often, but for the Mac, nada. 

Looking through the MacOS beta forum, the last entry I see  was “MacOS Catalina -where's the WRSA Mac beta?”

And that was 5 years ago. 😞

OK, to be fair, we are up to 9.6.4 from 9.0.x (for Catalina), so there have been releases, but the last beta was for MacOS Catalina, and that came out October 7, 2019, so I am guessing nothing for Beta testers because no major release has taken place? 

Do I have that wrong? 

​@Ssherjj said

This response from Support has always been to "Pause the Secure Keyboard Entry," since 2014-2015 around that time. When Wanderingbug was in charge of the Mac Support. I'm just shocked that this is still is a problem after all these years. 

I guess I have been lucky so far as to never trip over that as I was completely unaware of that. But I would be shocked if there were not a table of exceptions to Secure Keyboard Entry for legitimate systems functions. 

I guess what bothers me most is that IF I turn that function off permanently , the interface goes red all the time, so I not only loose the indicator that something may have been found, but the rest of the protection for keyboard snooping.  I guess it is using the menu to display when I need it, but that is a terrible solution. 

So I have to ask this seriously: Is there still a Mac design team at Webroot, or just a maintenance team? 

Thanks

Well, Mac users were looking for support in the forum because they discovered that they could not use certain applications because Webroot was blocking Adobe for one and Macros I have been researching the  Forum here and haven’t found the posts concerning this with no avail right now. But look HERE. This has been the short cut which was only used temporarily to  “Pause the Secure Keyboard Entry``’ and then turn it back on when the task was completed. I discovered this myself on accident when trying to use Voice and Dictation when running Mac Beta. And this was confirmed by Wanderingbug, ...