Wireless keyboard won't turn on after changing battery

Panic this morning. I replaced my batteries and notice a gray/white cap came loose inside. I ignored put in the new batteries. The keyboard wouldn't come on. I was resigned to thinking the keyboard had died and was moments away from spending €70 on a replacement. Then I found this thread and tried the tinfoil trick. It worked!!! wow! Excellent! Thanks for this advice!

That happened to me when I was prompted to change batteries last night. Frustration!!! What has just worked--and I hope continues to work--was moistening the nodes at the positive end of each battery. Maybe only the first one in needed to be moistened. The idea came in from the responder who had used a tiny piece of metal to make sure there was contact.

Tinfoil did the trick. Fabulous.

My keyboard was getting power: the light turned on for a few seconds. But then lost power almost immediately, even with fresh batteries. Tinfoil did the trick: working great now.

So my keyboard died after almost 3 yrs. The green light just wouldn't come on. I decided to go buy the wired keyboard instead seeing as it was a bit of a pain to have to change the batteries fairly often and that a wireless keyboard was a bit pointless. 2 days later I stumble upon this thread, stick a bit of foil in, and the thing comes back to life.

Looks like the wireless one will be going to ebay. Wireless keyboards just aren't worth it. Wireless mice I can understand.

Why can't apple make these things last a bit longer? Like the mighty mouse scroll ball was also shocking.

I think you're right....somebody should explain.....but I guess they rely on the ingenuity of people to fix their problems. Thanks for fixing mine. I hope I can be of help in the future....Tin foil - who would have thunk!!

Anybody could confirm that the two-battery version of the Apple Wireless Keyboard (introduced at the end of 2009) is failing either or it is just the three-battery version affected by this design flaw ?

Hi, I just wanted to say that I'm one more happy user of the aluminium foil trick. After trying out multiple sets of batteries I finally googled and found this thread. I made my aluminium foil ball from one quarter of a yoghurt can lid. Dropped the ball to the battery compartment and the keyboard works again. Thank you very much!

Addendum to the foil ball trick:

Been there done that previously and it worked like a charm - Now I find that after the recent firmware update I couldn't pair the keyboard no matter what - No flashing light, just a solid light and then it would turn off again. Gave up for a couple of days.

Solution: Hold down the 'Enter' key when you power up the keyboard and then hold down the power button for 10 secs - Result - Flashing Pairing Light and everything restored to normal use. Tried all the other solutions so far.

Is this one of those fixes that isn't really a fix though, and just by chance it paired - I don't see this information anywhere else?

Same problem here.
The keyboard power light wouldn't come on after installing new batteries, and my computer
couldn't find my keyboard.

I thought the keyboard had died. I wiggled the batteries, checked their voltages, tried a bunch of stuff... Nothing worked.
I finally gave up on it and found a spare pc usb keyboard in the house so I could get up and running again.

Then I came to this discussion group and read several posts, including one where someone said something about dirty battery terminal contacts inside the battery compartment.

So I had a look inside - with a magnifying glass, and I noticed on the contacts in the keyboard compartment where the positive end touches (the opposite side of the negative springs) there were small black discolorations. I used an exacto knife and gently scrapped that black stuff off, put the new batteries back in and bingo! the keyboard immediately came back to life!!!
Wow, that's all it was!
Some tiny little bit of corrosion was preventing contact, so no power was getting thru.
My keyboard is the wireless white unit with the numeric keypad and clear casing,
but this fix might well apply to other battery powered wireless keyboards.

hey guys i just had this same problem;
The keyboard simply wasnt turning on, even with fresh batteries.
i bashed the thing around for a bit and stuck some chop sticks inside, eventually i got this grey 'cap' thing a couple other people mentioned here. i threw that cap in the garbage, you dont need it and its obviously causing a connection issue between the batteries and the keyboard. then i put the batteries in and bingo!
good luck

Easiest fix there is, although I wouldn't have thought of it until reading these posts. I have a model A1016 - the white keyboard with keypad - and it was simply a matter of cleaning the contact with a cue tip! It's the same fix for my trackball or mouse. The contacts simply get dirty over time and have to be cleaned. I'm not sure this is really an Apple problem.

Just to let you guys know the aluminium foil trick works a treat - I'm using it now. But I discovered it only after I'd arranged for a replacement to be shipped out. Shame on Apple for not alerting its customers to this piece of shoddy workmanship or even posting up the solution. Apple Tech support simply reckoned the keyboard was "dead" and didn't offer this workaround.

EVERYONE who is having this problem needs to call in and file a complaint. This is a factory default that they should cover. Apple will not do anything till they get enough formal complaints though. This happened to me this morning and that is what I was told by the apple representative. So lets make those calls and get our keyboards fixed!

I have a month old wireless keyboard that will not turn on. Some times it will, sometimes it wont. When it does come on it works fine. When it doesnt work, the green light wont come on. I have tried multiple sets of new batteries. I think I might have a faulty unit. Is there a way to reset the device?

I just now got my new wireless keyboard, it wouldn't pair up w/laptop; disconnected from my iMac; new batteries, no power... ?? **Put in the foil, so obviously not making contac

Thanks everyone for the info!