Q: Unresponsive Keyboard and Trackpad problem FIXED/RESOLVED

just bought a new macbook pro retina 15, late 2013. had a mid-2010 macbook pro (not retina). on the 2010, my bluetooth keyboard, mouse, and track pad had co-existed peacefuly and simultaneously for a very long time. now, the new MBPR will only recognize the mouse. can't see the keyboard or trackpad. i could live without the trackpad, but the keyboard not so much. any thoughts on how to get it to recognize the bluetooth keyboard? thanks for any help you can give.

Wow, LB, are you really telling me you have a brand new MBP not responding to its internal KYBD or trackpad?

And cannot pair with your BT KYBD either? Yikes, you've still got plenty of warranty; back to the shop with it like lightning!

For the moment, try to pair your BT KYBD again. Put new batteries in it if need be. And the best of luck to you!

hi hexdiy,

thank you for the kind words. thankfully, internal kybd and trackpad work. Keyboard and mouse batteries are 100%

after double checking for any external noise, many reboots, and patiently clicking back and forth in bluetooth-search setup windows for each external (keyboard and mouse). magic mouse was finally recognized for an instant ... saw it then lost it. once it finally showed up long enough to click 'continue,' the mouse ultimately paired ... this also took a few tries. had to reboot and repeat bluetooth-device-search process multiple times before it finally found the external keyboard. still can't pair the trackpad.

i honestly can't say anything positive about the macbook pro retina 15" late 2013 with mavericks ... i've had at least 10 macs. overall (not just bluetooth), this is worst Apple experience ever ... easily.

I don't know if you're still around but you're a genius, I was all set to buy a new MBP, now hopefully I can squeeze some more juice from my 2008 one. Thanks.

exactly the same problem with rmbp15 2013, unresponsive touchpad and keyboard as well as the audio issue when u sleep ur mac with a headphone plugged in.  nightmare...

Just want to add a few thoughts to this ongoing problem which first befell me a couple years ago. (BTW, I have a 17" MBP and a new Air but I still go back to this MBP for many projects since I really like the concave keys much better than the chicklet style.)

Anyway, I have  had this problem return very sporadically over the past year but nothing like it was previously, as I've commented earlier. I've found a few things that can give me back the trackpad and keyboard without restarting.

First, if I find the trackpad not responding, I either rub my fingers, warm them or wipe them with a damp cloth. Sometimes it seems as though the pad loses its ability to sense the finger. Most of the time I get the cursor to move again. I also take my finger and give it a push/swipe/flicking movement upward and sometimes this reactivates the cursor.

If those don't work, I've found that using the arrow keys can sometimes bring back the cursor and the rest of the keyboard as well.

Failing all of these attemps, I cast a spell over the Mac and swear a blue streak. Of course that doesn't give me back my cursor or keyboard but it makes me feel better. :-)

I have a 2014 MBP and had a non responsive trackpad right from the start. Having got Apple support, the very easy fix was simply to press the command button and F1 at the same time and hey presto - problem resolved

Thanks, werry63.

Sidenote: I'm working with laptop and cinema display. Command + F1 created a mirror sitch where both monitors displayed as primary. Not sure what that was about, but reentering Command + F1 toggled back to only one primary.

One more thing ...

Re: the original wireless-accessory-response problem

For magic mouse and late-2013 MBPR 15", I want to shut off "Scroll direction: natural - Content tracks finger movement" Deselecting the box in Mouse settings has no effect whatsoever. Every time I grab the mouse, the page/spreadsheet/graphic scrolls. And, I can't turn that 'feature' off. Urg. Does anyone know how to make this stop? I appreciate any help you can give. Annoyed and nauseous ...

Dear LB, I am thinking you are putting your question in the wrong thread. This here thread is getting to be a kind of garbage can/melting pot for every keyboard/mouse/trackpad issue or so it seems.

Originally, it was about a specific MBP problem which involved a generic MBP trackpad and keyboard flatcable failure.

Nevertheless, to accomodate you:

Deselecting the box in Mouse settings has no effect whatsoever.

Have you tried restarting your Mac after altering something in Preferences? Take it from a Mac oldtimer: manytimes this does the trick!

Good luck to you!

You're right about the new thread, hexdiy. Took a chance on a wireless guru saying "just do x"

Yeah, I've restarted countless times ... while invoking seriously foul language. I agree that's always excellent advice ... restarting. Thank you for trying.

Hey LB, if you have no success by posting a new thread, repost here. I have notification by email. But this forum is so huuuge! No way to keep up completely.

Sorry people for the off-topic.

Here's a few options for the scrolling problem:

Trash the system prefs found in your user Library that relate to the appledrivers for mouse and bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Restart or log out/in, then if all OK, empty Trash.

There is a Terminal command I found that will supposedly reverse the scroll for all input tools (use at your own risk):

From a Terminal window:

    sudo defaults write /System/Library/User\ Template/Non_localized/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences com.apple.swipescrolldirection -bool false

Or you can try the free app called Scrollreverser. No personal experience with it but worth a shot if nothing else works.

https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/

I see this thread has been long and winding, but hopefully I will find the solution I've been looking for here since the thread has recently been revived.

I own a 2009 silver MacBook (which became MBP the following year, I believe) running OS X Mavericks, and all of my important documents are backed up using Time Machine. My 250GB HD is also manually partitioned (no Boot Camp) to run Windows 7 on about 60GB of HD space. I mainly use my Windows 7 partition for PC gaming.

A couple months ago, my internal keyboard started behaving erratically. It remained responsive, but the keys began performing strange tasks, for example, pressing the "D" key would minimize my browser window, the "A" key would open Finder, the "Option" key no longer functioned at startup, etc. The trackpad also began to behave somewhat erratically - using the trackpad to open an app on the dock would instead select the app in Finder, and I would then have click the app in Finder to get it to finally open.

I bought a cheap Logitech USB Windows keyboard to test the issue. Most of the time, the Logitech keyboard works fine for simple typing, but it was still frustrating because the Alt key would not allow me to access the boot screen on my Mac, so I was unable to switch between Operating Systems (apparently this is an unresolved issue for some using a Windows USB keyboard with a Mac). On rare occasions, the Logitech keyboard would also experience the exact same malfunctions that the internal keyboard had been experiencing - the "D" key minimizing the browser, etc. I have been able to correct this issue with the USB keyboard by fiddling with the "Windows" key. (Not sure how relevant this is, but I thought it was a weird coincidence.)

I left my MacBook alone for about a week, powered it off, and upon coming back to it discovered that I could again use the "Option" key to access boot options on startup, and the other keys were also functioning normally again.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, and the same exact problem is back again. I decided to go into my Mac and change my startup disk to my Windows partition and just work from there, but then I didn't have access to all of my iTunes music and documents on my Mac, so that was still frustrating (I did use a free trial version of MacDrive to access them for a while and transfer some things to a flash drive). I also couldn't use my "Option" key, so there was no way to go back into OS X and change my startup disk again.

Then Windows crashed, and I was forced to power off my MacBook and use an old HP laptop for about a week. Today, I went to power on my MacBook just to see - and VOILA! - I could again use the "Option" key to access boot options and gain access to OSX, re-partition and reinstall Windows, etc. Now the internal keyboard and trackpad seem to be functioning normally once again. But I'm afraid that it's only a matter of time before the issue reappears and I'll have to again spend hours trying to fix or work around the problem.

I've tried running command lines and have also tested every other solution I've been able to find online, but nothing seems to work. I've also removed the battery, but I don't think the wire trick applies to my later model MacBook.

I've been told that I could need a new top case, but my internal keyboard was never really unresponsive - it was simply malfunctioning and performing random tasks. In fact, I'm using my MacBook to type this right now and everything is functioning normally. Plus, I can't really afford a new top case right now.

So if anyone knows what else might be causing this issue, please let me know ASAP.

Thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide.

This may be kind of a blast from the past for folks at this point, but I have to say: the index card trick works. (Originally found at http://jasonrobb.com/v2/2008/11/24/macbook-pro-unresponsive-keyboard-trackpad-so lution/.) My early 2008 model 15" Macbook Pro, which I fully expect to live to the ripe old age of 10, recently started losing keyboard & trackpad functionality simultaneously at unpredictable intervals. This was happening about 2-3 times a day and was pretty disruptive to my work/etc. I tried the index card thing over a week ago, and it hasn't happened again since.

(Extra note for anyone having the same problem: I pinpointed the two-finger trackpad right-click as a cause of some temporary loss of functionality, so I disabled that function before trying the index card fix. It didn't solve the problem, but I do believe that it lessened the frequency of permanent functionality loss. As a superstition, I've kept this feature off and re-learned to right-click with the Control key.)