Turned off the keyboard backlighting on my MacBook Pro?

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Turned off the keyboard backlighting on my MacBook Pro?

I think I have somehow managed to disable the keyboard backlighting on my MacBook Pro. I don't use the backlighting during the day, but last night, when I pressed the F6 key to turn up the backlighting, nothing happened. In the little graphic that usually pops up when you dim or brighten the backlighting, there was that circle-with-a-line-through-it symbol (would you call it a "cancelled" symbol or "not-allowed" symbol?) underneath the bar that usually indicates how high you have the brightness turned on.

Annnd, just now when I pressed F6, I am suddenly able to adjust the keyboard brightness again, even though two seconds earlier, it wouldn't let me whether I pressed F5 or F6. Whaaaat is going on?

On a side note, I did go into Settings --> Keyboard and Mouse and turn off the option to automatically adjust the keyboard brightness based on ambient lighting.

13" Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jul 6, 2009 11:06 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 6, 2009 11:11 AM in response to aymiewilson

As long as the 'Illuminate keyboard in low light conditions' box is checked in System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard tab, the keys will light up if the ambient light is low enough. It's possible that your body was blocking the light sensor, etc.

Note that you can override the OS and manually control the backlight with LabTick:

http://labtick.proculo.de

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Answer 2

Jul 6, 2009 4:43 PM in response to aymiewilson

If the light sensor (next to the built in i-sight camera on top of the diplay) detects that ambient room light levels are too high, the keyboard lighting will not work (i.e. even if you push the F5 and F6 keys) Once the light levels are below a certain point the keyboard illuminates and once it does you can adjust the brightness with the F5 and F6 keys. Its designed that way. Even if you have the box unchecked the keys will not work and the keys will not illuminate unless the room light levels are low. You can test this by putting your hand over the light sensor. If you do this it will replicate low lighting levels and then you can adjust the keyboard light levels.

Also In that same preference dialog box make sure you don't accidentally check the box that says "Use all F1, F2 keys..." because that will make it necessary to hold down the fn key in order to use those keys for the special Apple functions printed on the keys.

M.

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