Chinese input method seems to be broken on my G5

[Don Merlin]

Hi Folks,

All of my Macs are setup so that it's easy to toggle between US and
ITABC (Chinese) keyboard input. When I switch to ITABC, the character
input is treated as pinyin (underlined, with options for selecting
Chinese characters). However, for some reason, on one of my computers
(G5 tower), when I switch to ITABC, the input is not working right.
It's not underlined, and does not provide options for selecting
Chinese characters (even though the input menu shows ITABC is
selected).

I tried doing repair permissions, but that didn't help.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to fix this? I'm trying to
migrate from my G4 to the G5, and I really need this feature to work
on the G5.

Thanks.

[TenThousandThings]

Don,

Welcome! A bit more information would help. What version of OS X are/
were you using?

Follow-up troubleshooting questions would include: Does it happen in
all applications? What about TextEdit? If you create another user
account and login to it, does it also happen there?

[Don Merlin]

Both my G4 and my G5 are running 10.4.11. On the G4, when I toggle to
ITABC, the input method changes for all of my applications (Eudora,
Word, TextEdit, Safari, etc.). On the G5, when I toggle to ITABC, the
input method remains unchanged (aka, Chinese does not work) on all
applications, including TextEdit, even though the International menu
shows ITABC as the selected input method.

I created a new user account, and tried it there, and it works. So
the problem appears to be related to my account. The question is, how
can I fix it?

[Rob Rohan]

In applications/utilities there is a program called "console" try
keeping that open when you try to use Chinese and see if it shows any
errors. Might offer some clues.

And from the microsoft school of debugging... have you tried rebooting?

发自我的 iPhone

在 09/10/2008，7:12 AM，Don Merlin <bcat...@gmail.com> 写到：

[Don Merlin]

Here is some additional information:

When I use my keyboard shortcut to toggle the input from US to ITABC,
the input menu changes to show ITABC flag, but I just noticed that the
menu items (after opening the menu) do not show the Simplified Chinese
items that normally show up when switching to ITABC.

Another thing I noticed is that when I attempt to manually change from
US to ITABC using the menu (rather than the keyboard shortcut), the
menu selection is ignored.

Has anyone seen this problem before?

[bcat...@gmail.com]

At 7:17 AM +1100 on 10/9/08, Rob Rohan wrote:

>In applications/utilities there is a program called "console" try
>keeping that open when you try to use Chinese and see if it shows any
>errors. Might offer some clues.

The console shows nothing. Likely, because it doesn't recognize that
I've even switched to ITABC.

>And from the microsoft school of debugging... have you tried rebooting?

The problem has existed for months, and the machine is rebooted
daily, so yes, it has been rebooted.

[Eric Rasmussen]

Try deactivating ITABC (in System Preferences > International),
restart, then reactivate it. Perhaps you've already tried it, but that
would be the first thing I'd do. Another thing worth trying right away
is trashing the SCIM plist in ~/Library/Preferences -- sorry, I don't
remember the 10.4 filename. There are also three other files you can
trash (though you will lose some user data when you do), they are
listed at the very end of this entry:

http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/pages/scim_x4.html#itabc

A more thorough approach would be deactivate it in the problem account
and then login as Root and activate it there. Then logout of Root,
login to the problem account, and reactivate it there.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1528

This last approach was required to fix an obscure bug that appeared
late in 10.3. I've not heard of anything similar in 10.4, but things
do get screwed up sometimes. If none of the above work, then you're
probably looking at doing an Archive and Install to fix it. Unless
someone else has another suggestion I've not thought of...

Eric

[Judith M. Amory]

On Oct 8, 2008, at 5:34 PM, Eric Rasmussen wrote:

>
> Try deactivating ITABC (in System Preferences > International),
> restart, then reactivate it. Perhaps you've already tried it, but that
> would be the first thing I'd do. Another thing worth trying right away
> is trashing the SCIM plist in ~/Library/Preferences -- sorry, I don't
> remember the 10.4 filename. There are also three other files you can
> trash (though you will lose some user data when you do), they are
> listed at the very end of this entry:
>
> http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/pages/scim_x4.html#itabc
>
> A more thorough approach would be deactivate it in the problem account
> and then login as Root and activate it there. Then logout of Root,
> login to the problem account, and reactivate it there.
>
> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1528
>
> This last approach was required to fix an obscure bug that appeared
> late in 10.3. I've not heard of anything similar in 10.4, but things
> do get screwed up sometimes. If none of the above work, then you're
> probably looking at doing an Archive and Install to fix it. Unless
> someone else has another suggestion I've not thought of...

Well, since he said starting a new account seemed to fix it, it seems
not unlike my earlier problem with QIM -- requires starting a new
account and moving your stuff there. Took me about four hours, but
near the end I realized that if I had known how to do it right I could
have done it in much less (45 minutes or so).

Maybe he could try using QIM instead of ITABC and see if that worked?

Judy Amory (jam...@speakeasy.net)

[kenny wang]

Hi Eric,

  What do you mean by doing a archive and install it? could you explain this to me? i dont get it, and quite curious.

   i met this problem before, yes, i tried to switch to chinese input but the ITABC logo turned grey, so i un-check the chinese input in international setting and check it again, as a friend said, it works again, or it has a little problem with some application sometime, like Word, so just close the application and re-launch it. i also met some chinese inputting problem, maybe you can try to install QIM? the latest version and see it both chinese inputting methods dont work, and lets figure out the problem.

   a friend mentioned above about the console? how can i use console to manage the operation? i think there is a log or something? anyone could explain this to me? thanks alot.

[Fabian Fang]

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:28 PM, kenny wang <kennyb...@gmail.com> wrote:

What do you mean by doing a archive and install it? could you explain this to me? i dont get it, and quite curious.

The following Apple Support KnowledgeBase document tells you all about it:
<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710>

[bcat...@gmail.com]

At 5:34 PM -0400 on 10/8/08, Eric Rasmussen wrote:

>Try deactivating ITABC (in System Preferences > International),
>restart, then reactivate it. Perhaps you've already tried it, but that
>would be the first thing I'd do. Another thing worth trying right away
>is trashing the SCIM plist in ~/Library/Preferences -- sorry, I don't
>remember the 10.4 filename. There are also three other files you can
>trash (though you will lose some user data when you do), they are
>listed at the very end of this entry:
>
>http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/pages/scim_x4.html#itabc

I deactivated ITABC, then deleted all 4 of these files, then
restarted and re-activated ITABC. It works now!

Thanks!

Bill
--

Bill Catambay, Editor-in-Chief
The Macintosh Guild
mailto:edi...@macguild.org
http://macguild.org/

[kenny wang]

great, your problem solved.preference folder contains alot of files you can delete related files to reset certain appllication