Neither of my Option/Alt keys are working.

I asked a similar question recently [https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250054052] which got no responses. I only use the Option key nearest to the arrow keys for convenience, but I tried using the Option key on the either side and it isn't working either. Command still works. I've tried Googling it with no answers. I thought I figured it out by checking System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Input Sources and unchecked the two boxes there (which say Select the previous input source and Select next source in input menu) as per one response on another post I found which I thought may fix it [https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6487226]. There was a caution symbol next to both of them in the list and once I unchecked them, the caution symbols went away but didn't fix the problem. What else can I try to fix this?

Using OS X Yosemite, version 10.10.5 on MacBook Pro with Retina (Early 2015).

MacBook Pro Retina (2015 and later)

Posted on Dec 31, 2018 4:09 PM

Posted on Jan 1, 2019 10:29 AM

I resolved the issue on my own, and am posting what I did in case someone else comes across the same issue as I couldn't find anything for it online. While browsing other websites on Google which were how to correct unrelated issues of mine, I found a way to pull up an onscreen keyboard (System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard tab > check the box for "Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar"). When I did, an icon came up on my toolbar next to the battery level icon; the icon was a black square with a "U+" inside of it, this is the “Unicode Hex Input” keyboard (I really don't know what that means at all or why it's there). I decided to switch to the "U.S." keyboard to see if that made a difference. I opened a document to type random words and delete it using my shortcut (Option-Delete), and it worked the way it’s supposed to! I must have hit a random key combination to switch from the US keyboard to the Unicode Hex Input keyboard.

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Neither of my Option/Alt keys are working.

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