Display has changed - can't change it back

[Flybridge]

Hi

I was trying to enter a keyword, but obviously did not click on the right part of the screen. I started typing the keyword, when I looked up (I can't touch type), the dispaly has changed and I can't it change back.

It now has a black background and no other panels are showing and the menu bar has also disappeared.

The menu bar reappears if I hover the mouse at the top of the screen. The only option that does anything meaningful is to click on View, then either Grid or Loupe, which shows all photos in small boxes, or just one photo. I can move between photos using the cursor keys.

I obviously typed a keybord shortcut, but I don't know which.

The word I was typing was "Aleksi's". But I don't seem to be able to back-track, and Ctrl-Z isn't helping.

If I click onto another app, such as my browser to type this, the display returns to normal, except the menu bar is still hidden.

Any ideas how I can correct this? I can't do very much with it like this.

Many thanks.

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

There is a problem reported elsewhere here, where after typing the first letter of a keyword, Lightroom Classic exits the keyword field. When that happens, because no field is active, every letter typed is handled as a single-letter shortcut.

What probably happened to you is that you typed “A” and the Lightroom Classic exited the keyword field, so that when you typed the next letter, “L”, Lightroom Classic read that as the single-letter shortcut for Window > Lights Out > Next Light Mode. This switched it into Lights Out with a black surround, and so the way you will get out of it is to either choose Window > Lights Out > Lights Off, or keep pressing L until it cycles back around to Lights On (normal) mode.

The next two letters were E and K, so if you continued typing, Lightroom Classic would apply the single-key shortcuts E (View > Loupe), and K (View > Create New Mask > Brush), and so on. This can put your image in an unexpected state and be very disorienting (especially if Lights Out is still enabled), so when I recognize this problem happening, I immediately choose Edit > Undo as many times as necessary until I undo the first character entered for the keyword.

The other discussions about this problem in this community seem to indicate that the problem is tied to a specific version of macOS, so you might be able to stop the problem by upgrading macOS. It‘s also a good idea to make sure Lightroom Classic is fully updated. I did both (I am now on macOS 13.6.3), and the problem isn’t happening to me now.

[Flybridge]

Hi Conrad

Thanks for the info. I suspected it was invoking the keyboard shortcuts, but I'm not familiar with them so I wasn't sure what I'd done or how to reverse it. I didn't consider that the letters could rotate around a few states, so just retyping "l" wouldn't nevessarily reverse it. What you describe is what seems to have happened to me.

Control-Z didn't work, but if this happens again, I will use the Edit option on the menu, as you say to do.

However, I inadvertantly found out that by exiting LR and restarting it, the dispaly returns to normal.

I'm running MacOS 14.0, so it's strange that it happens for me and not you, on a previous version.

[Conrad_C]

I'm running MacOS 14.0, so it's strange that it happens for me and not you, on a previous version.

By @Flybridge

Uh oh…I thought the problem happened only in macOS 12. If it’s also happening in macOS 14 Sonoma, then somebody (Adobe or Apple) still has some work to do to fix this…