Nothing I'm aware of that might be taking the keyboard focus.

I've also trashed the preferences - that didn't work so I re-installed the program. Still no change.

I had this for a bit, it wasn't anything about focus. I reinstalled the OS (mojave) and it quit. Which may be coincidence.

Thanks. I have a feeling it's about Mojave.

SOLVED.

Turns out to be a setting in System Preferences/Security & Privacy/Accessibility/Privacy/Allow the app (the DAW) to control your computer.

VEPro running as it should now.

You did it. You solved an issue that I have faced for over a year. i even posted here regarding it. I'm on Mojave.

Note: Vienna Ensemble Pro had already been checked. What solved the problem was checking my DAW (Logic Pro) as well. 

Many thanks, gt123. 

Glad to be of help.

In case anyone else has this issue, there is one more possibility. I already had Cubase 10 ticked in my Accessibility options, but my transport still wasnt working. Remembering this from another app, I tried removing Cubase 10 and re-adding it there, and that fixed it. Apparently, when apps are updated, sometimes they need to be removed and then re-added to Accessibility, OSX may not recognize them after an update.

@gt123 said:

SOLVED.

Turns out to be a setting in System Preferences/Security & Privacy/Accessibility/Privacy/Allow the app (the DAW) to control your computer.

VEPro running as it should now.

Thanks so so much to you, plowman and derekderek for taking the time to report about this. That fixed it for me too, after it bugged me for a long time. In my case, simply unchecking and checking back Cubase did it. 

Wow, thank YOU! 

Hello,

I'd like to reopen this thread because I have the same issue and there is nothing I can do to solve it.
I am using Big Sur and pressing the space bar from within VE Pro 7 only lights up/down the little play icon in the toolbar and nothing else. It NEVER does play/stop my daw playback (both Cubase 10.5 and 11).

I tried everything: wiping out the macOS TCC database, removing and reinstalling VE Pro 7, upgrading from Catalina to Big Sur... nothing!

UPDATE: it turned out it is WaveShell v12.0 which causes the space bar "stealing". By updating to v12.6 the problem is resolved!

I can't believe you figured that out, but thank you!  :-)

To make VEP transport functions work, both VEP and Logic need to be in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility with each program enabled.

When I attempt to add Logic 10.8 to that panel, Sonoma registers it as 10.7.7.

If I delete Logic 10.7.7, and drag Logic 10.8 into the panel, Accessibility registers 10.7.6

The obvious consequent is that Transport doesn't work in Logic 10.8.

Could the Vienna engineers look at this? I understand it's an Apple thing, but maybe they have some ideas. At the very least, I want them to be aware. I'm not the only user who has multiple Logics available on a Mac.

Having deleted all other Logic Pro versions other than 10.8, I can now control the transport from VEP. As best I can surmise, Sonoma resists granting System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility more than one Logic program if multiple versions are resident in Applications. I'm currently on Sonoma 14.1.1.

The success was short-lived. The connection between VEP's transport and Logic 10.8 was soon lost. Limiting Applications to one version of Logic seems to be irrelevant to this problem.