Keyboard randomly stops working after Leopard Install

I can reproduce this on demand.

I have set my Mac to always "hibernate", which means that it always saves a memory image to disk and completely shuts down.

Here is what I have to do to lose the keyboard:

1) Power up
2) "Hibernate" the machine - powers it completely off
3) Resume from hibernation (takes about two minutes while the 4 GB memory file is read off of disk)
4) Run VMWare Fusion and Resume my Windows XP VM that has been suspended
5) When VMWare is done, I can't type in VMWare and I can't type in OS X

To resolve it I have these options:

1) Sleep and resume Mac OS X - This will typically restore the keyboard in OS X, but if I resume the XP VM it losses the keyboard on both again

2) Restart Mac OS X - This completely resolves it. If I then resume the XP VM the keyboard continues to work.


I have tried this once with a real "Sleep" (not "Hibernate") under OS X and I recall that the same problem happened, but I have not done this again to double check.


I got my machine on October 4th and used it happily in exactly this mode until I installed Leopard a week after it came out. A week after that I upgraded from 2 GB to 4 GB of RAM; I thought that would help but the only thing it did was make resuming from a hibernate take twice as long.

10.5.1 made no difference either. I had VMWare Fusion Release Candidate for Leopard when I first upgraded to Leopard. When the final Leopard version of VMWare came out I installed that, but that also had no effect.

I assume Apple already knows how to reproduce this and is working on a fix. If not, you can swap out my box if you need a test case. I'm bummed that I didn't get those 2.6 GHz chips that came out a couple weeks after I got my machine. 🙂

Harold

I've had the problem once so far. Restarting the OS fixed it.

having read through this entire thread and comparing to my own experience, it seems that everyone started having this problem soon after they must have downloaded the 1st software update to leopard.

my MBP's keyboard currently does not work. How am I typing you ask?
With the new apple USB aluminum keyboard. My boyfriend has it for his mac mini.

Because all these keyboard problems are new and happening to everyone now, we have to assume this is related to the leopard update. They JUST released the aluminum keyboard, so they probably had bugs with the usb aluminum keyboard and had to make some kind of change in the code with how leopard relates with keyboard input. so, it's most likely a coding error and we are at the mercy of apple for a freaking software update ASAP. Don't erase and install - because that will just take you back before the update, and then after you update your software again, it will happen again. I updated yesterday and almost immediately started having this issue.

The best thing we can do at this point is FLOOD APPLE WITH PHONE CALLS. We paid upwards of $3000 for a computer - holding down a key and messing with text edit is NOT acceptable.
These are NOT solutions. Every time your keyboard stops working, and holds you up from doing your work, CALL THEM.

That's what we think is happening...maybe something more severe is happening and we're wrong. but, hopefully, this is all it is and they will FIX IT as soon as possible because it's really annoying.

I'm running 10.5.1 on a SR Macbook Pro. After installing 10.5, I experienced the intermittent internal keyboard failure. The only thing that your help was reboot.

I downloaded the larger 10.5.1 update file from the Apple site (did not update through the software update function). I haven't experienced the keyboard failure since. Machine has been up for 7 days now (keyboard had been failing every day and half or so). My fingers are crossed.

I have no idea whether my experience is coincidence, or whether there is some real difference between the different methods of updating to 10.5.1 that would affect the keyboard issue.

To add yet another report, this morning I was having breakfast with my sister, and when she re-opened her MacBook (C2D, non SR), her keyboard was unusable. Her MacBook was in normal sleep, not safe sleep like mine fails under, but very similar traits -- computer would operate normally, but no keyboard input would register. The trackpad was usable to restart the machine.

I wanted to get in on this discussion also. I am a long time Mac user and this problem has me "flummoxed" also. I have a relatively new (<2 month old) MBP 15" 2.2 machine. It is a refurb, but had no problems until I installed Leopard. After the install started haveing the problems with the keyboard also. It has been random, though today it has been very frequent. I have had to restart to get the problem to go away. I feel certain that it is a Leopard problem also. Maybe if anyone at Apple looks at these boards someone will see that this is a problem, hopefully it will be fixed soon.

BTW, I don't think Apple reads any of these discussions, except maybe the OSX area. If you want Apple to know that you're having a problem, you should report it here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html Of course, if you have AppleCare or are in warranty, you can just call them, but for me it wasn't worth the time. There doesn't seem to be any fix.

(If you're a developer, you can file a bug report but that looks a bit more complex.)

I'm sure it's a subtle bug and complicated to fix, and all that... I'm really not all that upset with Apple, but maybe if they find out how widespread this issue is, they'll call some employees back from vacation to try to solve it. It is VERY ANNOYING.

It's sad when you go to sleep at night thinking, "Hey, maybe there will be an update for me tomorrow!"

Anyone found a solution yet?

I have the same problem, keyboard randomly dies soon after a suspend/resume cycle. It's definitely not hardware related as I have Gnu/Linux Ubuntu 7.10 installed and it hasn't had a single problem after numerous suspend/resume cycles.

I didn't have this problem until the final update of 10.5 and 10.5.1 didn't fix the issue.

I'm rather entertained that I've been using Ubuntu more than the OS I just paid for.

I have the keyboard freeze problem too, after upgrading to 10.5.1. Happens about once a day. Didn't happen once in several weeks of Leopard or several months of Tiger.

btw, I'm also having a problem with Time Machine now, in which it fails to backup. There aren't any warnings that TM has failed, except that in the TM preferences window where it says it has failed, and there aren't any backups from the last few days.

I will give feedback to http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html as suggested.

This is not a solution, but this problem only started happening to me today when I tried using the Mail app for the first time (I used to use Entourage, and may go back...). Haven't had the problem except when Mail has been open...Don't know if this applies to anyone else.

-Aaron

That was probably just a coincidence... I don't even use Mail on my MBP (primarily Aperture & Pages are what are used frequently) and my keyboard still stops working.

Well, I stopped using Mail and haven't had the problem since (and I never had it before I tried using Mail)...Other confounding factors could be that I had tried importing 50,000 messages into mail and so spotlight (or some other background task) could have been the cause...

Anyway, I don't seem to have the problem anymore...hopefully my experience might give some clues that help others figure out the triggers for their problems...

-Aaron

OK, I thought that 10.5.1 had solved the problem for me, but this is not the case. Today, when I woke the machine up, I got a black screen with spinning beach ball (the password window didn't come up).

When I checked the logs, I saw the following message after wakeup:

11/24/07 2:24:26 PM kernel USBF: 461805.246 [0x3f32500] The IOUSBFamily is having trouble enumerating a USB device that has been plugged in. It will keep retrying. (Port 2 of hub @ location: 0x5d000000)

It turns out that location 0x5d000000 is the internal usb bus with the macbook pro keyboard and trackpad attached to it. From System Profiler"

USB Bus:

Host Controller Location: Built In USB
Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBUHCI
PCI Device ID: 0x2832
PCI Revision ID: 0x0003
PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086
Bus Number: 0x5d

So, the log would seem to suggest a hardware USB problem, but I never experienced the keyboard failure under Tiger...

Hope they fix this pretty soon....

Add another to the list. Very frustrating problem. Mine usually fixes itself after about a minute or so.

Also, is anyone noticing their mouse is sometimes really jumpy after waking the computer from sleep? This happens to me only when my airport is on and is scanning for networks. If I turn the airport off, the problem resolves itself. Could this be related to the keyboard problem? I have the latest version of Little Snitch installed (perhaps relevant?).

Just got my MBP on Wednesday, have not yet updated to 10.5.1. Noticed today for the first time that my keyboard was unresponsive. Only thing different today from the last two is a Verizon USB wireless adapter. Keyboard froze just after I hooked it up.