Keyboard Backlit light turns ON after shutdown or in sleep and starts flashing.

I installed the software karabiner-elements, it claims to be a keyboard customizer, anyway install it, and remap the fn keys that are used to change display brightness to keyboard brightness from the app. and then also check the setting in the app that allows u to use the modificatons without logging in. most importantly make sure u give all the permissions to the app via settings. Now change the keyboard brightness once or twice using ur remapped fn keys, and see if it fixes the issue. Now am not sure if its actually really fixed, right now it didnt happen for last 7 days, but atleast a month of observation is needed for any conclusive results. *u should make a backup of ur computer before installing it, incase if u mess something up.

abhinav0532,

Thanks for letting us know. To continue isolating this further, you could also test in safe mode. Safe mode can help isolate if the issue might be software or hardware, as it runs certain checks on your Mac while loading and starting up. The following article goes into further detail about safe mode and, if needed, how to get into safe mode: How to use safe mode on your Mac

Best wishes.

Hi abhinav0532,

It appears that when shutting down or putting your MacBook Air to sleep, you notice the backlit keyboard is either flashing or turning on. When this happens is your MacBook Air still in your logged in user or has logged you out already?

If it happens while your still logged into your user, you can see if this happens in a temporary test user: Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac This can show if the issue is only happening with your specific user or any user on your MacBook Air. Let us know how that goes.

Take care.

abhinav0532,

Got it. We appreciate the update and for you trying that for us. Since you continue to encounter this issue after those steps, you can contact Apple Support for further assistance here: Contact Apple Support

Cheers.

btw if u face difficulty going by the method I mentioned previously with the karabiner elements app method, u can go for a complete dfu restore, search for it in google, and u will know how to perform it.

Did u get the issue solved? If not, have you tried connecting an external keyboard with a built in backlight and see if it flickers?

Hi abhinav, I was having the EXACT same issue on my brand new m1 macbook air, the flashing stops when changing it manually using the slider in control center ,and resumes when device goes to sleep/shutdown. Did u got it resolved? If so how?

Thanks for the quick response Abhinav!

Yes I also tried everything with the software, including a complete wipe and reinstall, and since in both of our cases the flashing also happens after SHUTDOWN! it isnt anything software related. I was also having my semester exams, so was thinking to get it checked just before the festival vacations or after. you know I was really curious that almost both of us received our macs in approximately the same date, and have the EXACT same issue...do u think its a common prob with all the macs produced in that timeframe/batch and sold to India? Btw I noticed a few things as time passed on:

-Now along with the flashing, sometimes the backlight mostly just stays on completely after sleep/shutdown thus draining battery.

-Sometimes backlight does not flash/stays on in sleep/shutdown for maybe 5-10hrs and then randomly it starts again.

-EVERYTHING ELSE WORKS TOATALLY NORMALLY, with apple diagnostics not finding a single issue.

Can u think of anything that may have triggered this issue? for example do u live in an extremely humid area ? or maybe had a very lil amount of water get into the keyboard? or anything like this?

and lastly, yes apple TOTALLY ruined the experience for me. I wanted to get a mac for my studies and now I have to circle service centers, wasting my imp time, for a device which becomes defective after a week or two of usage.

I went to the service centre, now as u can guess the backlight wasn’t flashing there, and they said they couldn’t replicate the issue which is obvious coz it doesn’t happen all the time, so they reset the os and told me come again if it happens in the future,lol. Have u taken ur machine to any service centre yet, what was their response in ur case?

I think my issue has been resolved, it seemed to be a deeply rooted low level software issue, I was able to solve it by installing a keyboard related software, that seems to have removed the bug. Now I am not sure if its "permanently" gone, but my keyboard didnt flash once for the last 7 days, If it doesnt happen for 1 month straight then one can confidently say its gone