Feb 15 19:24:08 [57] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: Failure: UCKeyTranslate returns -50

I’ve never seen the problem without the 2nd monitor. I’m on Leopard 10.5.8

The system log entry says:

UCKeyTranslate – uchr may be corrupt, keyModifiersToTableNumFormat 4B74

Does anybody know what “uchr” is and how I can un-corrupt it?

I’m having this issue on a Mac Pro with an Apple Keyboard (A1243) US. Just disabled Keyboard & Character Viewer. Now only using US keyboard layout.

Also, anyone here using the Command-Space/Command=Option-Space key combo for anything that might cause you to inadvertently select any of these alternate input methods?

I posted earlier on how this probably relates to the Eudora problem I’m having. Well, I’ve got a lot more information. It seems it happens with several Carbon apps. Please note that Apple did NOT disable Carbon apps – they are still suppose to run. What I’ve found is a way to detect the symptom, but not offer a cure.

Most of the crashes to date have occurred in a routine called UCKeyTranslate. Anyone can with ease determine if this is where your crash occurred. When you get the blue screen, open the Console App (in Utilities), make sure you have the list of files to examine on the left (Make sure toolbar button “Show Log List” is clicked on. Open the “System Diagnostic Reports” list, and see if there is a WIndowServer… entry at the bottom – if so click on it. About to lines down you should see something like this:

Thread 0 Crashed: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread 0 …ple.CoreServices.CarbonCore 0×00007fff8735d2a6 UCKeyTranslate + 464

The first line after “Crashed” is the key – here you can see the UCKeyTranslate. Now, I know this is where the windowserver crashed.

If you see that. now click on system.log – its under the FILES container in the left list. In the search field enter UCKeyTranslate – if you see many entries, then you have this Carbon problem. I have a friend who runs the same app with no problem, so no idea what is different on my system. However, what I did was a fresh Snow Leopard install on a new partition, then I used Migration Assistant to move my apps from the Leopard partition to Snow Leopard.

I’m an old time UNIX programmer, so what I did was write a small shell program to monitor system.log all the time, and to beep when this UCKeyTranslate error happens – so I can try and figure out what I do that is causing it. Unfortunately, it happens at random times and with no apparent pattern. But do note that I’ve gotten Excel 2004 and TextWrangler to cause these errors in addition to Eudora (which I use all the time). I infer from this that the problem is Carbon related, not Rosetta.

I’m not sure how fonts could be related to this, but for sure they could be.

If you’re having blue screens with Excel, look at the cause, and help interested parties determine if its this or some other persistent error causing the crashes.

I have two bugs in – will suggest they get dupped. However, given that Rosetta is on the way out, this is extremely unlikely to ever get fixed…

David

We recently upgraded a few of our workstations to MacPros with OS 10.5 and the Intel chips. One of our users had the same exact problem, seemingly to be related to Excel (also running 2004). She would be working on it and then find herself with the blue screen, then login screen.

Turned out – It was her desktop background.

Her background changes every hour, and when I noticed that her machine was misbehaving the same minute of each hour I asked her if she changed something to her desktop backgrounds. Turns out she changed it to “random” today, and once I unchecked “random” her machine has been rock solid.

Sooo maybe check your Desktop & Screen saver options and make sure that “random” isn’t selected for change picture.