Keyboard stops working in Snow Leopard when using Spaces

I just started experiencing this issue, but only after the 10.6.3 upgrade.

I've just experienced keyboard input issues where half the keys weren't registering. It happened after returning from being idle.

MacWorld, who goes in depth about updates, didn't mention any disclosed or undisclosed update to Spaces.

Very disappointed this issue was not resolved in 10.6.3. 10.6.4 maybe?

Oh ****, your right, still not fixed with me ether 😟

10.6.4 will be months away cries

I am starting to have your exact problem. First the keys begin to stick or the trackpad starts responding differently. The caps lock key will turn on and I have trouble turning off or it will blink. My usb mouse will work but nothing else. I simply turn it off and on. I am pondering just removing snow leopard and going back to leopard. Ever since I started snow leopard my printer doesn't work my TI-89 applications struggle and now my keyboard keeps quitting. I am relieved to hear that others are having the same problem. I thought it was a virus or something or mechanical issue. I was about to spend $49 to tell Apple my problem and, fortunately, I did not because apparently they don't know about it or can't fix it. The support cost might be the reason they don't know about it.

They know about it. Many of the commenters on this thread (including me) have reported it as a bug, and I've talked to a few software developers that have also filed their own bug reports.

So it's not for a lack of awareness, that's for sure.

In case anybody missed it previously, installing Hyperspaces and setting keyboard shortcuts there seems to be a really good fix.

Yep, they already know about it, I logged it as a bug at the end of January and got this reply:

This is a follow up to Bug ID# 1111111. After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering. This issue has been filed in our bug database under the original Bug ID# 7253919. The original bug number being used to track this duplicate issue can be found in the State column, in this format: Duplicate/OrigBug#.

Oh my freaking G-D!

I went to the Genius Bar yesterday because of a battery problem. The battery had actually swollen and this was a known problem -- it's even printed on the battery that this could happen. I never even heard of such a thing. I've had a half dozen or more Dells and HPs and never saw it happen or heard of it. At least they replaced the battery for free -- I thought I was losing my mind, not being able to figure out how to seat the battery correctly.

While I was there, I asked about 10.6.3 (like if they knew when it would be released) and the guy is like, "Oh, I haven't tried it yet". And I'm confused. But sure enough, I was a day or two behind in checking for updates, and there is was.

I (We) have waited months and months for 10.6.3 and I read something it the release about it fixing problems with USB devices and I thought -- Hallelujah!

And frankly right after I installed 10.6.3, I tried to use the arrow commands to move around in Spaces and it actually worked fine yesterday. Then today... back to the exact same old behavior. Had to launch the Activity Monitor and kill the dock again.

I just can't believe it.

I have all these friends asking me if Macs are better than PC. Asking me if they should switch. I don't even know what to tell them anymore.

When's 10.6.4 going to be released? August? October? Xmas? Will it even have the fix? Who knows.

This is crap.

Put in for a "me too"...never saw this problem until I upgraded to 10.6.3. Original poster describes the symptoms very well.

I'm new to this post as I never saw this behavior until I installed the 10.6.3 update via software update. I thought it was something new... apparently it's not.

I get the exact same behavior as the original post. Haven't been able to figure out what causes it other than the keyboard command to switch spaces. Seems to happen every time I'm using GoToMeeting to do a demo... but if someone else starts the meeting and invites me to it I don't have the issue.

me too, on 10.6.3

I had been experiencing this, and I thought it might've been caused by VMware Fusion (since it does weird keyboard-grabby things), but I can't seem to reproduce the issue anymore. It's now gone!

So you uninstalled VMware Fusion?

I have it installed at the moment and I get this issue, so if it gets fixed when you get rid of VMware Fusion, then that might be worth a try 🙂 (Though I pretty much depend on VMware fusion for my daily life, and I don't like Parallels or the others).