OA GUI stops ú being sent to apps

[dalchina 0]

Hi, OA's GUI running (not the firewall itself) seems to change ú (sent to an application) into sthg else.

What am I trying to do?

- use a small program (AX) to enter accented characters easily in Word and other apps.

What happens?

All the characters are fine except for ú which was converted into 'select last character' then 'backspace (delete)' on the next occurrence.

The correct character is 'sent' by the utility AX.

How did I identify OA as the apparent culprit?

All is fine in Safe Mode.

Eventually I found closing down OA in normal mode allowed AX to work properly.

Shutting down HIPS, the firewall only, keyloggers... has no effect, nor does adding AX's folder as an exception.

Only shutting OA's GUI down allows AX to work.

What significance does this character (code) have for OA? Why does it intercept it?

Ideas welcome!

Thanks, dalchina.

[catprincess 19]

Assuming I have the right program (http://vulpeculox.net/ax/), it seemed to work okay in Wordpad when I tried it. The version of AX that I downloaded seems to be 3.10. I'm not sure what language you are using. I just looked through the various languages available until I found one that uses the "ú". I then typed the English "u" and pressed the F8 key to cycle through the accented u's that were available until I found the one that looked like the one you typed. I'm not sure if that's the same procedure you use though.

Do you have OA 4.5.1.431? Is the program marked as Trusted? Do you see any relevant entries in History at the time you try to type this letter?

[dalchina 0]

Well done! Very precise understanding- thanks! Sorry, should have posted the URL for the program.

Yes, my firewall is v4.5.1.431.

I have added AX's folder to the exceptions.

No, there's no history entry related to using 'F8' with AX.

AX.exe is listed as trusted.

With OA GUI running

aāáǎàa eēéěèe iīíǐìi oōóǒòo uūǔùüǖǘǚǜu aāáǎàa eēéěèe iīíǐìi oōóǒòo uūǔùüǖǘǚǜu

With OA GUI closed ('Close GUI Interface' from rt click on tray icon)

aāáǎàa eēéěèe iīíǐìi oōóǒòo uūúǔùüǖǘǚǜu aāáǎàa eēéěèe iīíǐìi oōóǒòo uūúǔùüǖǘǚǜu

(V4 of AX is now available, but does the same thing).

Vista Ultimate, 32 bit.

[dalchina 0]

(The character string above is obtained by hitting space, F8.

I'm using Chinese (pinyin), but the same applies to any other languages supported including this character).

[dalchina 0]

Also tried killing all processes and services I reasonably could; even context entries using Shellexview.

The only thing I've found that allows AX to transmit that character is to disable OA'a GUI.

[luc 0]

(The character string above is obtained by hitting space, F8.

I'm using Chinese (pinyin), but the same applies to any other languages supported including this character).

Dalchina, I could not reproduce your finding because I could not obtain the character string by hitting space and F8, while using Chinese (pinyin). However, similarly to catprincess, I was able to cycle to the character ú.

[dalchina 0]

Hi luc, maybe the <space>F8 sequence was introduced in AX v4 - ...sorry, I don't know..

The author kindly told me about it, & I didn't use it until I'd installed v4.

http://vulpeculox.net/ax/AXV4.exe

Well, I've tried killing everything I can using Autoruns, but that's proved nothing new. If the effect I see is somehow due to something else, identifying what may prove hard.

Now if I were able to run OA in Safe Mode, then since in Safe Mode ú appears ok, if I could then run OA I could see if it affected ú or not.

That might prove whether the effect I see in normal mode is solely related to OA. I don't have access to another PC to compare, unfortunately.

I suppose I could try reinstalling OA, but that could prove more painful than it's worth...and probably gain nothing.

If anyone's any idea what else I could try..

[dalchina 0]

**** Here's the reason - OA's Hotkeys ****

At least on my PC, if I disable OA's hotkeys, then AX works fine sending all the variants of 'u' to an application.

Further: It is not enough to CLEAR all the hot keys.

It is necessary to DISABLE them.

Questions:

1. Why do I see that, but not Luc and catprincess? Mm.. are hotkeys enabled?

2. Why does OA looking for hotkeys affect the particular sequence (backspace, <character to be displayed>) from AX? (In my case at least).

At least I've a good workaround... dalchina

[catprincess 19]

1. Why do I see that, but not Luc and catprincess? Mm.. are hotkeys enabled?

I have OA's hotkey's enabled here. I really don't know why this happens for you. Perhaps it could be specific to certain O/S languages. Glad you've found a way to work around it, in any case

[dalchina 0]

Thanks for your help..much appreciated..

To summarise: issue encountered on

Vista (Ultimate), 32 bit, English, up to date.

Online Armor Premium (downgraded from ++).

dalchina