Macbook Pro Key repeat problem

Just in case others have the same problem:

I just had somehow the same repeat problem, but only for the spacebar. The key was not mecanically sticky, but the mac behave as if the spacebar was always down. first i tryied to blow air and to shake: it reacted as a bad contact so I feared a necessary cable or full keyboard replacement.

Then I could see ( thanks Google) that you could remove a keyboard key without opening the case.

Et voila: there was just a simple hair doing the shortcut!

For a strange reason, the space bar has one central button that is protected from dusts, but also two lateral zones, each in center of the plastic thingy that holds the key. If you touch this zone with anything, even a not so conductive piece of paper, that makes a keystroke!

I can ´t see the usefullness of these zones. If the problem repeats, I'll have to think of a mean to protect those from dusts. But it might be tricky because simple tape might well be too conductive...

Anyone has a solution for this? It's driving me crazy. I was just about to google for "osx key repeat problem" and it turned out like this "osx key repeat problem". Sometimes it's like it just wants to mock me.

This is definitely not a hardware issue or has anything to do with dirt under the keys. It happens both on my Macbook Air internal keyboard and an external bluetooth keyboard. I write all days at work and this messes the code up 100 times a day!

Not sure if anyone solved the problem, but we did discover the cause for one of my users:

The issue was - the Bluetooth keyboard. The user would throw it in a bag and keyboard would hit something in it and cause a random key to repeat endlessly. Bluetooth keyboard may be connected to your MacBook even when it is stashed away in a bag.

Hey anyone has solution? This problem has occurred in my Macbook Air 2012 for 1 month. I tried to reinstall OSX but it didnt help. I also dont have any bluetooth keyboard. It makes me so annoyedddddddddddd.....Please helpppppppppp!!!!!!!

I just had the same problem.. keyboard on my mac book air seemed to keep sending the arrow up key.. could hardly use the mac at all.. spent 30 minutes checking everything..

then switched of bluetooth and everything was ok...

hmm I wasn't using a bluetooth keyboard.. but then it struck me.. I gave my daughter my old wireless keyboard to use on her mac mini and teenagers as they are.. she had a pile of stuff piled on the desk and most of was on the keyboard and seemed that the arrow up key was taking the strain..

So the keyboard was connecting through a concrete floor and screaming for help... save me from the untidy teenager..

Same problem here with a Macbook Pro Retina 13 (early 2013) - with Mavericks (software up-to-date)

Never had this problem untill now. I couldn't even login; had to use external usb keyboard to get pass login.

For the moment i used this temporary fix :

(open terminal)

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

Hi all,

There are two kinds of key stickiness problems: software and hardware.

I was having software-kind and I just solved it and wanted to share with you the solution.

When I was using Sketch or other design apps, I was using spacebar to temporarily switch current tool to a Hand tool. Recently I noticed that if you hold spacebar long-enough, Hand tool turns on when clicking around even after releasing the spacebar key! To turn off this "sticky" spacebar effect I had to manually press spacebar quickly few times, and often it didn't even help. It was happening on both my MBP 13" and Apple Wired Keyboard. This was super-annoying because I couldn't pan the design files, and I make my living from slicing and coding them up!

When I tried turning off "Key Repeat" in "System Preferences > Keyboard", it solved the issue. However, when I set the "Key Repeat" back to where it was before (4th tick from the left), the issue didn't happen anymore! This means it must have been some software bug in MacOS, causing the key repeat buffer overflows, coming from previous OS versions. It might had something to do with upgrading to Sierra, because it happened only after upgrading.

Hope it helps somebody in the future.

cheers

Roy

I have this problem and it's a software issue. I know this because as soon as I reboot and I log in with my Apple ID instead the problem disappears.

hello it's better to change your keyboard! you can't disconnect it because if you will disconnect the keyboard you can't turn it on!