Hotkey capture field silently freezes when Accessibility permission is missing
- Dominant language
- Swift
- Stars
- 2.9k
- Forks
- 226
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
**Describe the bug**
When Hex doesn't have Accessibility permission, the hotkey setting field enters
the "Enter a key combination" state but never captures any input — it just freezes
there. There's no indication that a missing permission is the cause, so it reads
as a hung/broken UI rather than a permissions problem. Granting Accessibility
manually and restarting Hex fixes it completely.
**To Reproduce**
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
1. Launch Hex without granting (or after revoking) Accessibility permission. In my
case Hex didn't appear in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility
at all, and I had to add it manually with the "+" button.
2. Open Settings and click the hotkey field to set a combination.
3. The field switches to "Enter a key combination".
4. Press any key/combo (e.g. Option, or Command+Option) — nothing is captured.
**Expected behavior**
Either the pressed combination is captured, or the field shows a message
explaining that Accessibility permission is required — ideally with a button to
open the relevant System Settings pane — instead of silently freezing.
**Screenshots**
[Optional — a shot of the frozen "Enter a key combination" field would help, if easy]
**Desktop (please complete the following information):**
- macOS: [e.g. Sequoia 15.x]
- Hex version: [e.g. 0.2.11 — menu bar → About]
- Apple Silicon
**Additional context**
Not sure whether the first-launch permission prompt appeared and I dismissed it,
or whether it never fired — so this report focuses on the silent-freeze behavior,
which is reproducible regardless of how the permission ends up missing. Suggested
fix: detect missing Accessibility permission in the hotkey-capture UI and surface
it inline rather than leaving the field frozen.
Contributor guide
No contributing guide indexed for this repository
Research direction
No files or tests are named. Start in the Settings hotkey-capture UI and reproduce the capture flow with Accessibility permission missing, then trace how permission state is handled. Done means the field no longer silently freezes: it either captures input when permitted or explains the missing permission and offers a way to open the relevant System Settings pane.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- macos, swift
- Domain
- accessibility, desktop, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 55/100