iMac Keyboard Doing Strange Things

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Level 1

49 points

iMac Keyboard Doing Strange Things

The space bar and navigation keys on my iMac Monterey wireless keyboard have suddenly stopped working properly. This happens while entering text in emails, in documents, in the browser address bar, etc. - pretty well everywhere I type text.

All else appears to be working properly on the keyboard. And the wireless mouse seem to be working fine, too.

I have to press Option + Space Bar simultaneously to make it put spaces in the text that I write (including this text.)

And I have to press Option + the navigation keys in the bottom right-hand corner of the keyboard to get the cursor to move forward, backward, up and down across my text..

Also, typing a required hyphen sometimes forces a carriage return, as happened in the previous sentence.

I updated my iMac from Big Sur to Monterey about 2 weeks ago, but this problem has popped up just now.

Is there a particular option somewhere that I should be changing to fix this?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Nov 11, 2021 7:36 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,282 points

Nov 12, 2021 6:58 AM in response to MurPhil

MurPhil wrote: I have to press Option + Space Bar simultaneously to make it put spaces in the text

It sounds like you have somehow gotten Full Keyboard Access turned on in Accessibility preferences. Turn it OFF.

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Answer 2

lllaass

Level 10

210,459 points

Nov 12, 2021 6:00 AM in response to MurPhil

Could be a mechanical problem with the keyboard.

If you go to System Preferences>Keyboard, do you have any special features or shortcuts setup?

I wood first try removing the keyboard from the Mac by opening Bluetooth preferences and moving the mouse cursor over the keyboard entry and clicking on the x that appears. Then try repairing the keyboard.

If persists see it the problem occurs when booted to Safe Mode. It takes minutes to boot.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

If OK in Safe Mode boot normally and see if problem persists.

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Answer 3

MurPhil Author

Level 1

49 points

Nov 12, 2021 10:59 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks for the useful feedback.

I think the Full Keyboard Access option in Monterey's Accessibility just might have solved my keyboard issue. But I don't feel comfortable enough yet to rule out a mechanical problem either. For example, I have a new issue where I sometimes can't seem to highlight my text using my wireless Apple mouse. Seems to happen erratically!?

BTW, I have another strange thing happening, after I updated to Monterey. Every time I log into my iMac Monterey, I get a brief message that says Increase Display Contrast ON. I think this means the contrast adjustment in Monterey's Display > Accessibility menu is turned on, but I don't understand why it's telling me, or why it seems to have to tell me this at every login.

There appears to be a few new things like this coming from my Monterey update that weren't apparent in my previous Big Sur, and it seems to be left up to the user to discover them on-the-fly.

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