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On Screen Keyboard Stops Working When Bluetooth Mouse is Connected - 2020 iPad Pro

On my new 2020 iPad Pro, whenever I turn on my Bluetooth mouse the on-screen keyboard disappears and won’t reappear despite my efforts to get it to return. Sometimes it will stop working immediately. Other times it will work for a very short time before not working. As soon as I disconnected the mouse, the on screen keyboard will work again. This is true whether I disconnect the mouse by turning off the mouse or by turning off Bluetooth connectivity. I suspect that iOS thinks an external Bluetooth keyboard is connected when I connect the mouse, but no external keyboard has ever been connected because I don’t have one (saving up for a Magic Keyboard). This error makes the iPad Pro unusable for anything requiring text input when using the mouse. I can’t efficiently do the productivity tasks that I need to do without simultaneous mouse and on screen use. Thanks for any help you can give.


Posted on Mar 28, 2020 7:54 AM

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Posted on Apr 2, 2020 12:40 PM

I figured out a solution with the help of Logitech Support. Logi says that their mice with advanced buttons are recognized as keyboards by iPadOS. To get around this, you need to select:

(1) Settings

(2) Accessibility

(3) Touch

(4) Assistive Touch

(5) Turn on: AssistiveTouch

(6) Turn on: Show Onscreen Keyboard

(7) You may want to turn off: Always Show Menu (the continuously visible menu icon may bother you, like it does me)

Note: it is possible to have “Show Onscreen Keyboard” on while “AssistiveTouch” is off. With this combination of settings, the onscreen keyboard worked appropriately some of the time, but not all the time.

-I hope this helps!

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Question marked as Best reply

Apr 2, 2020 12:40 PM in response to mkpack

I figured out a solution with the help of Logitech Support. Logi says that their mice with advanced buttons are recognized as keyboards by iPadOS. To get around this, you need to select:

(1) Settings

(2) Accessibility

(3) Touch

(4) Assistive Touch

(5) Turn on: AssistiveTouch

(6) Turn on: Show Onscreen Keyboard

(7) You may want to turn off: Always Show Menu (the continuously visible menu icon may bother you, like it does me)

Note: it is possible to have “Show Onscreen Keyboard” on while “AssistiveTouch” is off. With this combination of settings, the onscreen keyboard worked appropriately some of the time, but not all the time.

-I hope this helps!

Apr 2, 2020 12:41 PM in response to gkuhs

I figured out a solution with the help of Logitech Support. Logi says that their mice with advanced buttons are recognized as keyboards by iPadOS. To get around this, you need to select:

(1) Settings

(2) Accessibility

(3) Touch

(4) Assistive Touch

(5) Turn on: AssistiveTouch

(6) Turn on: Show Onscreen Keyboard

(7) You may want to turn off: Always Show Menu (the continuously visible menu icon may bother you, like it does me)

Note: it is possible to have “Show Onscreen Keyboard” on while “AssistiveTouch” is off. With this combination of settings, the onscreen keyboard worked appropriately some of the time, but not all the time.

-I hope this helps!

Apr 2, 2020 3:24 PM in response to gkuhs

If your Mouse requires a USB Receiver Dongle to connect (or provides an optional Receiver) instead of a direct Bluetooth connection to the iPad, the Receiver Dongle is likely to be the cause of the issue.


These devices often declare themselves to the Operating System as a hybrid USB device - and as a consequence the OS must assume that both an external keyboard and mouse are connected. Other Mouse devices only declare a single device-type.


A Mouse that declares itself as a hybrid device is designed to simultaneously operate with a corresponding external keyboard.

On Screen Keyboard Stops Working When Bluetooth Mouse is Connected - 2020 iPad Pro

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