OSX Leopard: Keyboard Problems
Sorry to say this, but it seems like Apple is doing a pretty good job at curbing the users’ joy about new and improved features by the severity of the bugs that have slipped through into the final release. (Don’t get me wrong, as I work in the software business I know and understand how hard it is to catch all bugs — but that doesn’t make the remaining ones any more fun 
)
Some people, including me, experience that their keyboards become unresponsive intermittently, mainly but not exclusively on the Macbook/Pro laptops. This has been described many times on the net, for example by the “Apple Gazette”.
For most people, the problem seems to boil down to these key points:
- It happens after waking up from safe sleep
- While the keyboard becomes unresponsive, the trackpad and its button are not influenced
- No apparent spikes in load or similar reduction of overall system performance are noticeable
- A reboot remedies the situation until the next time it is triggered (possibly by a safe sleep cycle, see above)
So far, I was unable to find a confirmed solution for the problem, but some readers suggest that the problem has not (yet) reappeared after they reset their NVRAM and PRAM as described in this Apple help document (if your Apple boot sound becomes so loud your neighbor across the street could hear it, you did it right).
Note that this issue was not fixed by the recently released OSX 10.5.1 update (though it fixed a pretty bad data loss issue, so you want to install it).
If you experience the issue too and want to share some thoughts, or if you have other household remedies at hand that may heal “spontaneous keyboard loss”, please feel free to leave a comment.
Update: The PRAM reset did not help; after waking up my laptop, I still frequently experience the loss of my keyboard. But as reported in the comments, Apple tech support frequently tells people they know about the problem and they’re working on fixing it. Let’s hope that’s true.
Update 2, 12/19/07: Apple released a software update that is supposed to fix the problem. Please read my followup post.
June 9th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
After I installed the new leopard my keyboard went backwards. I have to have the numlock and cap lock on in order for my keyboard to work this is crazy. Has anyone else had this problem?
May 29th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I’m running Dual 2 GHz PPC G5, 2.5 GB DDR2 SDRAM, OS X 10.5.3 and I’m experiencing keyboard problems. I experienced the problem with 10.5.1, 10.5.2 and still with 10.5.3. Like most others the problem seems to happen when waking the computer from a nap. It seems that 1/3 of the time all is fine, another 1/3 of the time the mouse becomes unresponsive, and the remaining 1/3 of the time its just the keyboard that is unresponsive. I’ve encountered all three situations repeatably now. I use a Macally iKey keyboard as I don’t care for the apple keyboards and a mighty mouse plugged into one of the 2 usb ports on the macally iKey. I am able to resolve unresponsive keyboard and unresponsive mouse by disconnecting the keyboard from the computer and plugging it back in. Once, when the keyboard became unresponsive my computer had the bluetooth lost connection wizard open. Could these issues arrise from some sort of blue tooth misconfiguration or is this apple’s way of recognizing there is a problem and trying to auto solution it. Seems like a poor move if there never has been a blue tooth keyboard or mouse paired with the system. It seems that most people encountering this issue are running notebooks so maybe these details will help. On to look for an alternative solution.
Cheers,
-Mpare
March 10th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Allen, did the keyboard patch work? I have done everything, updating to 10.5.2, just put the new Keyboard update with recent firmware, and still have the intermittent keyboard non response.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
M macbook pro keyboard just went dead this last week Am using a ps 2 ( p.c) keyboard to type at u. Apple care failed to correct the problem, and a local (Sonora , Ca ) area tech said that this is not uncommon for apple since the last run of tiger to lepoard 10.5.2. Update… Just got the keypoard update patch and installed this patch. I am glad that Im not the only one who has this problem. Allan Egleston. Sonora, Ca.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:57 am
[…] Apple released a system update that is supposed to fix the severe “keyboard unresponsive” bug in OS X […]
December 19th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Thanks for the info, man! After my next class, I’ll install it and will make sure to get a followup-post on my blog. Thanks to all the other people who told me about the patch, too!