Keyboard stops working in Snow Leopard when using Spaces

Note I have never had BetterTouchTool or Jitouch.
I used to have VMWare v2 but I uninstalled it.
There are other people in this thread who have said that they never had VMWare Fusion.

I am running Things, Jitouch and VMware Fusion 3.

I have just tried disabling all VMware shortcuts and it makes no difference (I don't run Fusion most of the time anyway).

FWIW I think this is system-related, rather than being caused by a third-party application.

zt99

Ok, so then I guess my restart of BTT had nothing to do with it then 🙂

I guess the best current reproducible workaround (without 3rd party software) is the following?

1. Kill the Dock from Activity Monitor
2. "Wait a while"
3. Use the Ctrl+arrow shortcuts again

Number 2. there then seems a bit vague to me... what exactly does the "wait a while" do? 🙂

This problem is getting worse for me. I first lost the keyboard after upgrading to 10.6.3 a few days ago. I had to reboot 5 times today. I don't see anything in the console, crash logs, etc. I lose the keyboard and quickeys, but still have the mouse. I tried quitting the dock, that didn't help. Those of you who log out...how do you login without a keyboard?? I have never had spaces enabled.

Mac Pro 2X-Quad-Core Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz
OS X 10.6.3
Memory: 6 GB
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

Richard- it seems very likely that you have a more fundamental problem- everyone else who has posted here has an occasional issue with Spaces that is fixed by restarting the Dock- you have something slightly different.

P.S. If you have the mouse working you can log out by clicking on the Apple logo in the left-hand side of the menu bar and selecting 'Log out...'.

I lost the keyboard again even before I finished my post, so I had to click on "post message" or lose what I had written. So some folks can log out and then their keyboard works and then they can login, I get it. That didn't work for me. I logged out and the keyboard still didn't work so I couldn't login, had to reboot. 6th reboot today. I also don’t use VMware Fusion.

Hi folks,

for me the following workaround fixes the problem every time (so no need to reboot your machines constantly):
System Preferences ->Expose & Spaces -> Expose

Choose a corner (in my case upper left) and set it to "Put display to sleep"

Every time spaces lock your keyboard, just slide your muse to that corner, screen will go black. Move the mouse again and keyboard is back.

You can easily reproduce the problem (also for testing if the fix works for you) by installing "Things" test version ( http://culturedcode.com/things/), launch it and do the following:
1. Open a webpage in safari
2. Press Ctrl-Alt-Space (or Ctrl-Option-Space)
3. click "cancel" in the popup
4. change to a different space using the keyboard

I had this problem now for several months (without using things), but with that software I can reproduce it reliably for the first time.

Confirmed!

Both the workaround and the repro case seems to work reliably!

Great one Xlite! Thanks 🙂

(btw. I didn't need to use the test version of Things. The current stable produced the problem for me fine)

Just press Ctrl-Shift-Eject for puts display to sleep (this command works in locked state)

I have been using Macs for 5 years and I have NEVER found that shortcut! Awesome, thanks!

This workaround works. Thanks!

Also, the shortcut "Ctrl-Shift-Eject for putting the display to sleep (this command works in locked state)" works wonderfully, too.

Hmm, I've been thinking about this - I've only recently started getting the issue, which was about the same time that I switched from 4 spaces (2 x 2) to 6 (2 x 3) spaces...I wonder how many spaces you guys are using?

Just four, always four.