Keyboard Gibberish

Tom Gewecke wrote:

(...)

Most gibberish problems found in these forums are caused by font substitution by non-corrupt fonts. Helvetica Fractions, Times Phonetic, and Lucida Grande.ttf are prime examples. Countless people install these one way or another on their machines without knowing it, presumably as part of installing popular apps, and most people do not know that duplicate fonts can cause such issues. Nor does a font causing such a problem always show up as a duplicate. Corrupt font caches can also do it.

Of course such problems are usually easily fixed by finding and removing the fonts in question.

Remove Lucida Grande?? I hope nobody sees that suggestion and does so, since Lucida Grande is the default font for OS X system display (System/Library/Fonts); I've never tried its removal, but I'd be concerned that its removal could do unrecoverable damage. Apple explicitly advises +“Mac OS X requires fonts in this folder for system use and displays. They should not be altered or removed.”+ Have you ever removed Lucida Grande? If so, did your OS still work? I note you also referred to “Lucida Grande.ttf” -- if you have such a font installed, it isn't the one installed by Apple. The correct file name is “Lucida Grande.dfont”--in fact Font Book won't even allow the deletion of any of these system fonts, so one would have to do so manually with a root user password, almost guaranteed to render the OS unusable. For the benefit of anyone who might have managed to delete Lucida Grande and any other fonts from the System font folder and find that now the computer doesn't work, they can be re-installed by booting from the install discs that come with your computer, start an install, select custom install, find and run the Essential System Software package.

I already mentioned programs installing duplicates, e.g. MS Word 2004. In removing the duplicates, one must be careful to check versions, as fonts get installed in Mac OS X in four or more Fonts folders, depending on software installation and number of users. One therefore needs to hover over the duplicate marked with the dot in Font Book and note the version, then the same for the un-flagged font. The version which is older is the one to be removed, whether or not it is the one with the dot. If both instances are the same version, the one with the dot can be removed.

One last thing: if anyone suspects they have a corrupted font, Font Book allows one to "validate font" by right-clicking on its name in the Font Book list.

It's hard to help without more details about the "gibberish." Send a screenshot if you want (tom at bluesky dot org). In the meantime, go to system prefs/international/input menu and make sure that only the box for US is checked.

Let's get a few things straight here:
(1) the "gibberish" means that all keyboard presses generate other-than-ASCII text, so-called "symbols" or "special characters" that require special keyboard combinations on a US keyboard (like option-e-(then without the option key) e) will give an e with an accented-to-the-right French style accent (accent grave);
(2) it doesn't just happen with Leopard, it also happens with Tiger since 10.11 update (and as of Leopard 10.5.6 is hasn't been fixed);
(3) It doesn't just happen with some keyboards, it has happened with anything from built-in keyboards in Mac laptops/books to all Apple keyboards, all 3rd party keyboards, old Apple USB keyboards, new Apple keyboards, super-old ADB keyboards connected via iMate, etc. In short, if you have a keyboard that the OS recognizes, it is susceptible to the fault.
(4) usually the mouse or trackpad continues to work, but not always; I suspect that it is dependent on the machine you use, most ordinary mouses work, wireless or wired.

So, for the most part, forget about attributions to hardware, it is an OS software problem from OS X 10.4.11 to 10.5.6 that I've experienced on different machines. If you are good at Google searching, you'll find dozens of threads on this problem, most in Apple's discussion forums closed as unsolved and archived, but still open on other sites (with no definitive fixes, believe me I've read them all). The first complaints stem back to 2006 and continue into 2009.

There have been a ton of superstitious behavior recommendations put forth by users, ranging from arcane terminal commands to restarting the computer 5+ times, to covering sensors, to sleeping, to logging out and back in, even archive and install or erase and install, etc., etc. None of them work, and for good reason: it is a software problem that has been persisting for 2+ years. Because the keyboard usually "comes back" with voodoo or simply by waiting and pushing some keys (doesn't matter which, those who think so are indulging in more superstitious thinking). So due to the intermittent nature of the problem, there hasn't been the pressure on Apple to really look into this. Most folks just want their computer to work, and when the keyboard returns, their motivation to deal with the issue fades. When one called Apple support about this, the standard solution is:
1. Shut-Down computer
2. take out battery and then hold the power button for 5 sec
3. reinsert the battery
4. restart computer holding down the command (apple) key, the "p" key, the "r" key, and the "option" key. The computer will start-up once (the mac startup sound) then shut down and start up again, after it makes the startup sound the second time, release the 4 keys and let it startup. Of course this does no more good than all the other voodoo, since almost anything one does like logging out and back in will accomplish the same thing, for a while. Then one day you get an urgent e-mail you absolutely must answer right away and the keyboard generates garbage characters.

BTW, to do the above steps assumes you can get into your computer to remove the battery. What if you have a Mini, that has no screws and must be opened by an expert with a sharpened putty knife? That's what I have, a brand new Mini 2.0 ghz, and it is unclear even if I opened it with said putty knife, it isn't clear if I'd be voiding my warranty or not (MacWorld is trying to nail Apple down on that question, so far only an old admission that 'if you don't break anything' it is okay, but not clear what current policy is). Even if you have a newish Mac where you can access the battery, why should you, particularly since the official fix doesn't do any more than the other voodoo people have come up with? My computer, as you might have guessed, is a Mini, brand new, this keyboard horror started happening to me 3 weeks after I bought it (yes, I did all the software updates religiously, ran Disk Utility). I'd been struggling with it for months on my old DA - G4, one of the reasons I bought the new computer. So, why did I pay money for a new machine that does the same thing as the old one? I guess I'm susceptible to superstitious behavior, too.

If this is a rant, it is a justified one, literally 1000's of users are affected by this, maybe more, and it has been going on for nearly 2 years.

The only solution I can see is people getting straight what they are experiencing and not attributing to this or that Mac, Intel, G5, G4, keyboard model, etc., they all show the same problem (it is not model or hardware, folks). It is therefore essential that unapologetic and factual reports be filed en mass to:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

BTW, AppleCare if you have it isn't any help, they'll tell you the above 'fix' of the PRAM or tell you to archive/install or outright reinstall your OS, which means all the things you've done with your Mac (having set the System Preferences the way you like, your view options, passwords, real work, etc.) is negated. This shouldn't be happening after all this time. Use the URL, everybody who has had this problem. And, copy and save this message of mine if you find it useful, as I know of half-a-dozen forums here on the subject that have been shut down as "archived" though they are "unsolved". This message might not last long for you to reply to, so save your own copy and get busy sending Apple your complaint via the URL I mentioned.

That could be, but Christopher didn't actually post a message confirming it (so I didn't notice he'd marked it 'solved'). People mark their topic as "solved" for a variety of reasons, for example going away on holidays or business and not wanting a string of messages awaiting upon return. The other possibility is

I think one I mentioned, that this keyboard thing is so intermittent that one may well think what one did has "solved" the problem, only to see it return. It comes and goes with no regular pattern. I was plagued by this problem every day for 5 days, and it was cured temporarily by going to International and changing the country input, e.g. from US to Canada, and then back. I too thought this had solved the problem, and once a month or more went by, then it returned.

There are those who say the problem is a corrupted keyboard preferences file, and that by either ensuring that no more than one keyboard layout is chosen, or alternating between two to get the file overwritten, solves the problem. However, since the problem comes back, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, it really isn't solved. I think your "solution" does generally bring back the keyboard, and so that reinforces my conclusion that the problem is across many Macs and keyboards, 'cause it is a software issue. But, from all the hundreds of posts I've read, right up to the present 10.5.6 update, it keeps happening and the fix always turns out to be temporary. Since Christopher is likely still getting message notifications, I wonder if he might reply and tell us if the problem has still gone away, or if he deemed it 'solved' prematurely.

Since OS X 10.4.3, Font Book alerts the user if a corrupt font is installed or user is trying to install. Font book also puts a little dot next to fonts in the list that are duplicates ...

2. Users have often deliberately or accidently added fonts that create the gibberish of which you speak.

Don't understand how they can do that, since Font Book will not even let you install a corrupted font; it will also refuse to activate old Type 1 fonts unless you have the screen bitmap suitcase.

Most gibberish problems found in these forums are caused by font substitution by non-corrupt fonts. Helvetica Fractions, Times Phonetic, and Lucida Grande.ttf are prime examples. Countless people install these one way or another on their machines without knowing it, presumably as part of installing popular apps, and most people do not know that duplicate fonts can cause such issues. Nor does a font causing such a problem always show up as a duplicate. Corrupt font caches can also do it.

Of course such problems are usually easily fixed by finding and removing the fonts in question.

Yep, here are a few:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81413

One of the earliest of such posts is/was in Apple Discussions, now closed and archived, and marked as "not answered":
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1232311&tstart=0

Another closed and archived, and marked as "not answered":
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1206602&tstart=0

Here's one that claims to be archived as "answered" but clearly subsequent topics show this is not the case:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1206602&tstart=0

There are too many to post here; by restricting your search to Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard or the sub-category Using Mac OS X Leopard,

Some of the most recent ones is already archived, though they are "not answered":
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8222592&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8218911&tstart=0

Here's one that claims it is a hardware problem on a MacBook Pro:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1365569

I cite the above because it was raised and the author claims it is "FIXED/RESOLVED" when in fact it is marked "unanswered" and is a perfect example of the phenomenon of "attribution", i.e. the guessing that doing one thing or another, or that it is only a problem with one particular model of machine, solves the issue. All this does is add too many variables to construct a decent hypothesis as to what is a core problem, let alone peripheral solutions that may indirectly create the illusion that the issue has been solved.

Here's one from Macrumors that went on for 9 months without resolution:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=376531

A good blog summary of the issue, and at the bottom, a follow-up:
http://fredericiana.com/2007/11/27/osx-leopard-keyboard-problems/

Though the above deals only with MacBook and MB Pro keyboard unresponsiveness, and Apple's non-correcting "fix", my deduction is that it is the same problem across many Macs, just shows up as unresponsiveness on MB's and as garbage characters on others.

BTW, one addition to my original post: my keyboard problem on the new Mini started after I repaired permissions (this was after a system hang at shutdown where everything moved off screen but the desktop background was still there perpetually, necessitating a hold-power-button-down-5+seconds-to-complete-shutdown. There have been a slew of reports that repairing permissions was the start of this problem for many. On my repair, there were a slew of permissions that had to be repaired having to do with Front Row. Even that is a red herring, however, as I began experiencing/hearing of this issue back in Tiger 10.4.11, which doesn't have Front Row AFAIK.

Joe,
It's obvious that you're very upset, and
I do understand how maddening it is to have a computer problem.

That said, I would like to add my 2 cents here.
1. "Gibberish" is 98% a font problem or conflict. It's very often a simple fix.
It is rarely a keyboard problem -- especially if it's a Mac keyboard.
2. Users have often deliberately or accidently added fonts that create the gibberish of which you speak.
3. And yes, this has happened from 8.6 to 10.5. It is not connected to the OS.
4. That battery "fix" is something I've never seen. Yikes!
5. Posters are not obligated, nor do they often take the time, to mark their posts as
"Answered" or "Solved." That's just the way it is.

If you are interested in getting help with your gibberish,
please just post your own new topic in the Leopard forum,
and I know there are lots here who would be happy to try to help you fix this.

Message was edited by: ~Bee

Tom Gewecke wrote:

my deduction is that it is the same problem across many Macs, just shows up as unresponsiveness on MB's and as garbage characters on others.

My own experience in helping people solve problems here over a number of years is that garbage characters and gibberish are normally separate from keyboard freezing. Sorry I do not know anything about the freezing issue.

I think what people mean by "freezing" is that when they do keypresses, they get nothing on the screen nor responses to command combinations, so it feels frozen, whereas it is an input interpretation problem, which in other cases the input registers on the screen and is scrambled (hence 'gibberish'). I already write too long messages; my personal log analyzing thie problem in detail would take up many pages. Of all the problems that people have called upon me to help them with, this is the only one that I haven't been able to solve, even for myself. Really, it is widespread, and many just reboot or wait until the problem temporarily lifts for the time being.

Yikes! What brain-dead application would install that Lucida Grande.ttf font (must be an old Carbon one from OS 9 or early days of OS X)? That would be good to know in helping people troubleshoot these problems.

Still, I think though font mis-installation and corrupted cache files may be one cause this gibberish situation, since people like me are seeing it on brand new computers, the issue is still bigger. I'm thinking now of the problem existing on a previous computer and imported to a new one via the Migration Assistant. I may have been guilty of that, never having before used Migration Assistant, I just let it do its thing. Fonts? Quite likely, but other kinds of bad caches and .plists, might get installed.

Oh, on your suggestion that I send you a screenshot if this crops up again, catch-22: if the keys are mis-typing, I can't use the screen shot combo keys like Shift-Command-4, though using the mouse I can use Grab in a Services compliant application (which doesn't save a file, but pastes the grabbed selection into the same window, at least in TextEdit).

from all the hundreds of posts I've read, right up to the present 10.5.6 update,

Could you provide a link or two? I don't recall them myself and your profile doesn't seem to show any earlier posts on it.

my deduction is that it is the same problem across many Macs, just shows up as unresponsiveness on MB's and as garbage characters on others.

My own experience in helping people solve problems here over a number of years is that garbage characters and gibberish are normally separate from keyboard freezing. Sorry I do not know anything about the freezing issue.

Of all the problems that people have called upon me to help them with, this is the only one that I haven't been able to solve, even for myself.

The next time you are getting gibberish, send me a screenshot of what a full row of keyboard input produces, and I will be happy to see if I can provide any advice on the basis of my own experience with that kind of problem (tom at bluesky dot org).

Christopher Pad seems to have marked his question as solved, on the basis of my suggested fix, over two months ago. So perhaps he did not have the problem you are talking about.

Here is a recent example of non-font, non-freeze keyboard gibberish for your collection:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1963067&tstart=0

~Bee wrote:
Joe,
It's obvious that you're very upset, and
I do understand how maddening it is to have a computer problem.

It hasn't just been my computer, people call me sometimes for help; it has ranged from old G4s, eMacs through MacBooks (and now my brand new Mini). Don't mistake my thoroughness for being upset, though. If anything I'm trying to cut past the jumping to conclusions that has clouded this issue since the fall of 2007.

That said, I would like to add my 2 cents here.
1. "Gibberish" is 98% a font problem or conflict. It's very often a simple fix.

What fix would that be? Since OS X 10.4.3, Font Book alerts the user if a corrupt font is installed or user is trying to install. Font book also puts a little dot next to fonts in the list that are duplicates (happens especially if one uses Word 2004, which wants to "auto heal" and insert its own fonts where there are newer versions of the same name that come with the OS). I'd like to hear of your fix; I've been dealing with fonts since System 6, Font-DA mover, through to the present Font Book. I've also written/created specialized fonts commercially and had to debug them.

It is rarely a keyboard problem -- especially if it's a Mac keyboard.

Agreed. I didn't mean to imply it was the keyboard per se rather it was the instrument that when used manifested the OS software's errant response.

2. Users have often deliberately or accidently added fonts that create the gibberish of which you speak.

Don't understand how they can do that, since Font Book will not even let you install a corrupted font; it will also refuse to activate old Type 1 fonts unless you have the screen bitmap suitcase.

3. And yes, this has happened from 8.6 to 10.5. It is not connected to the OS.

Here we disagree, given the wide range of Macs and keyboards (all Apple BTW), the common denominator seems to me to be in the OS.

4. That battery "fix" is something I've never seen. Yikes!

I mis-typed; one can reset the PRAM just from the keyboard; it is resetting the PMU that involves battery removal.

5. Posters are not obligated, nor do they often take the time, to mark their posts as
"Answered" or "Solved." That's just the way it is.

That's true, but by looking at the last entries in a thread you get an idea if anything lastingly useful was successfully implemented. I guess you're saying that just by neglect, topics remain "unanswered".

If you are interested in getting help with your gibberish,
please just post your own new topic in the Leopard forum,
and I know there are lots here who would be happy to try to help you fix this.

You're right, this topic may not have been the best place to take this up. My feeling is, it is less a matter of my getting help from others, rather to alert everybody who makes wild guesses that the problem isn't with this or that Mac, rather a widespread OS glitch.