App Tamer 2.0.1 corrects a few issues that were causing slow-downs in App Tamer itself, especially when it first started up. If you had an application that had a lot of sub-processes (typically Terminal, Google Chrome or Safari), App Tamer’s launch time could be glacially slow. And even after startup, pausing and un-pausing those apps took much more CPU than it should have.

In addition, CPU usage was reduced in several other areas and several bugs were squashed, including one that could cause App Tamer to fail to reenable itself after you turned it off for a specified amount of time.

For a full list of changes as well as links to download the new version, go to the App Tamer Release page.

It’s come to our attention (after about a week’s worth of debugging) that a software package called Elite Keylogger Pro disables Default Folder X. The Default Folder X Helper application will still run and you’ll see Default Folder X’s icon in your menubar, but none of its controls will appear around your Open and Save dialogs.

The frustrating problem has been that Elite Keylogger Pro actually hides itself so that it can be installed on a computer and surreptitiously record keystrokes and screen snapshots without anyone knowing (yes, that’s pretty sketchy). When I started receiving bug reports saying that Default Folder X had suddenly stopped working, the System Information reports, Console logs and other debugging information that I got from affected users showed no clear clues as to what was causing the problem. Finally, one observant Default Folder X user (with a good memory) remembered buying Elite Keylogger Pro as part of the Mac Bundle 4.0 and installing it (thank you Adam Olson!)

So, if Default Folder X has suddenly stopped working on your machine, see if you bought the Mac Bundle 4.0 recently – or purchased Elite Keylogger Pro separately – and installed it. If so, this is probably what’s causing the problem.

To get Default Folder X working again you need to uninstall Elite Keylogger Pro. And be careful – you must uninstall it according to WideStep’s instructions http://help.widestep.com/how-to-uninstall-elite-keylogger-mac/. Using a “clean up” application or just throwing the application in the Trash is not enough to remove it from your system.

I’ve contacted WideStep to see about fixing or working around the conflict and will update this as I have more information. Sorry for the trouble and for any time you’ve wasted troubleshooting this (hopefully you haven’t killed an entire week like I have…)

Update: WideStep has issued an update to Elite Keylogger Pro to fix this problem.  Get version 1.2.027 or higher from their website to ensure that Default Folder X runs correctly with their software.

– Jon