Keyboard and touchpad lost after sleep

Alright so, I made some changes to my laptop and from past two days I haven't had any issue of the keyboard/trackpad not responding problem and I believe it might fix your problems as well.

So, the problem I was facing was because I had two WiFi network with the same SSID (wifi name) and this was causing a problem. What does this mean?

Say my original router has properties 'A' and Wifi name 'MyWifi' with password as 'MyPass'. Now I have another router which has properties 'B' and wifi name 'MyWifi' and password as 'MyPass'.

As you can see I have two different routers but they have the same name and password. I did this deliberately so that I can have a seamless connection when I switch routers from one place to another and it reduced the burden of remembering two wifi names and passwords; and for me, here lied the problem.

For some reason, I believe that it's related to keychain saving wifi information or some other mechanism saving the wifi state and info when we put the laptop into sleep. When we wake it up, it has a hard time recognising which network it is because it finds two entries of the same name in the system and hence the freeze.

This also explains why the freeze are very random. For some people it just happens for a few seconds and while for some, you need to restart the computer. It also explains why some people are having this issue with old MacBooks from 2012 to the latest MacBooks also.

So what's the solution?

Nothing. Next time when you encounter this issue, just change the connected router name and password and reconnect it and hopefully it should be fine. Just make sure you change the name cause that's important.

I did some extra steps which might be helpful for some folks.

Go to Settings->Network.

Click on WiFi and delete the interface with the minus button on the bottom left

Click on the plus icon right next to it and the select interface as wifi and name wifi

Click Apply

Restart

Pls do let me know if it is helpful as I haven't encountered this issue once after renaming the network name.

The explanation and reasoning given above is just my hunch and it might or might not work for you.

This worked for MacBook Pro 15' mid 2018 i7 16GB 1TB 560x running Catalina 10.15.6

pratik71

THANK YOU for taking out time to reply , Means a LOT .... Now i do not have two DIFFERENT WIFI networks with SAME Names and SAME PASSWORD...

which i Have is Two DUAL BAND Networks (ONE 2.4 GHZ and Other 5 GHZ ) FROM THE SAME ROUTER but they are of DIFFERENT NAMES AND DIFFERENT PASSWORDS ......

I will try disabling one Network and figure out if that helps ....

THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN ...

Yes, that might work. Pls keep us posted on that.

The issue for me is completely gone now. Hope it might help people who have config like mine.

Btw Im using 2.4GHz wifi band if that info is useful for you

Same issue. Brand new MacBook Air latest version. I've been maybe using it for a month now and ever since the Catalina update the trackpad does not respond for a few seconds after waking from sleep. The delay in trackpad response seems to be increasing as well. I hope apple notices this. Please fix it!!

The issue definitely appears to be related to the wifi as others have mentioned in this thread. I have isolated it to the wifi network for my 5G. The workaround for me is to connect on the 2G wifi network and I don't seem to experience the issue. However, if i switch to the 5g wifi network then i'll start to experience the problem when my laptop goes to sleep. In an earlier thread someone indicated it might be related to the network names being identical or similar for the different wifi bands.

This seems to be an issue in the OS upgrade that is causing polling of bluetooth keyboards ahead of checking for the installed MacBook keyboard. The workaround that I found was: 1. Open System Preferences - Bluttooth. 2. Click on the Advanced button. Uncheck the first two buttons that refer to the Bluetooth Setup Assistant. This worked for me.

This makes sense, but what affect might this have if there is a bluetooth keyboard or mouse being used? My Macbook has not been consistent enough with this problem to establish that "doing this one thing" fixes it 100%. This weekend, I've not had it occur one time, and I've closed it to sleep, then opened it later many times, never having the issue one so far. To my knowledge, I haven't done anything that should change the behavior. Very curious why it's so intermittent, at least for some of us.

Disabling VPN seems to resolve my problem.

Every time the book goes to sleep with a VPN on and I open the lid, the trackpad and KB do not work until the VPN is connected or timed out.

I cannot seem to reproduce the problem with VPN off

I have the exact same problem with the VPN it's drives me crazy, i work a lot with VPN connections and sometimes i forget to disconnect and i know it will bite me back when ill return from sleep mode...so annoying!!

I hope apple is reading this issue and trying to release a bug fix!

On my old Macbook Air 2014 i didn't had any issue even with Catalina, this happens only on my new Macbook Pro 2019.

He's a weird thing I've noticed too; I have an external bluetooth keyboard, and that works more quickly when the problem occurs, sometimes my primary keyboard doesn't come back on at all. I just moved location, and now I have a bad wifi signal here, and I experience this more frequently. The weird thing was that I noticed on my 13" MBP, the Touch Bar is working fine; but the main keyboard and touchpad do not.

I have been following this thread for months now, trying all the suggestions, and still I haven't been able to fix this issue. Apple, would you please fix your software !

I've tried disabling bluetooth, I've tried keeping it plugged in, I've tried changing the bloetooth settings. I don't have an external keyboard (used to) nor an external mouse (used to). The most consistent thing I have noticed is that it happens when VPN is running, but even with that I'm not sure it doesn't also happen when VPN is disconnected before I leave the computer. Today it happened with the lid open, plugged in, screen locked, and VPN connected.

In case of any short attention spans out there, I'll lead with my most important point. I hate to say it, but I think the only thing we can do is keep opening and updating cases with Apple to keep the pressure on. This discussion will not get their engineers' attention no matter how large and active it gets. EVERYONE with the problem: please use the feedback link posted earlier, and open support cases to log the issue. Now... to my update.

The recent upgrade (10.15.7) didn't fully take care of it for my MacBook Pro (16" 2019). The first weekend I monitored it, I was encouraged, but I've had it occur twice today when opening it from being in clamshell. The delay only lasts about 5-7 seconds, so not as annoying as some have reported it. Maybe it varies based on model performance. (I experienced a much worse delay on the Air I no longer have.) I've been testing the "VPN theory" - for lack of a better term - and have determined that, at least on my laptop, it's not related. I've left the VPN up and not had the problem, and I've experienced the problem (twice today) when the VPN was not connected. This has all been on my home WiFi, so that aspect hasn't been a variable. With everything I've experienced, and from what I've read here, I think the ultimate source of the problem is far more complicated than one thing or Apple would've had it fixed by now. A firmware updated was postulated earlier in this thread, but I've not seen one yet for my laptop. We'll see what happens when Big Sur comes out. I probably won't install it immediately. I'm a little gun shy now!

As all other responses are saying I'm also experiencing it when wifi is turned on.

For quick fix (since it's frustrating) in case wifi was turned on before closing:

1.You can tap on siri on touch bar and say "turn off wifi", and later "yes" to confirm.

OR

2.Ask siri to do above with voice "Hey siri".

Then you'll get your touch pad working immediately.

I found a possible solution to it. I have a MacBook Pro 2020 13inch. I experienced this almost every time I raised the lid from sleep after at least 1 minute. I am using MacOS 10.15.6. I tried to reset the SMC and PRAM, and that didn’t work. Try this: go into system preferences>Network>Advanced. Under the Wi-Fi tab, in the preferred networks list, uncheck the Wi-Fi Networks you use most. Press OK and then APPLY. Then go to the wifi icon in the menu bar and select the network that you want to use (it should have been one of the ones you deselected). Click on it and enter the password. After you have reconnected to it, go back into Network Preferences and in the preferred networks list, drag that network to the top of the list, as well as the other networks you will use most often. After that, see if there are any networks with duplicate names or ones you know you won’t use anymore. Deselect the checkbox on them for “Auto-Join”. Click OK and APPLY. Restart your computer, and test it out to see if that fixed it. Hope that helps.

Hmm, I can confirm that problem still persist and it's not connected to VPN.

I just run into it. I had wifi connected (VPN off), but my internet connection was somehow disabled on my wifi router.

So wifi on and connected, internet off/disabled.

Macbook can't find keyboard and touchpad, somehow touchbar was working.

As I can see, my logitech mouse that was connected to usb hub->usb-c was not working...

Macbook pro 15 2018, 10.15.7.