Today is Feb. 23, 2023 for reference. I also think the Voice Control is the issue. I had my new Macbook Air M2 delivered 3 days ago. I did not do a transfer of data from my 2015 MA because it was too cluttered. I wanted it to start clean. I only installed Chrome on my M2 as far as Apps & used it to look up Google's voice search & how to add it to my search bar. But it took me down another rabbit hole which led me to Apple's "Voice Control". I have tennis elbow so I thought it would be very cool & useful. I went in to the Accessibility settings & turned it on. The little command window popped up & it said "sleep". I spoke sleep & it did nothing. I repeated a few times & it changed to "wake up". I repeatedly said wake up & nothing happened. I went in to the settings to turn on the "play a tone when command recognized" or something like that. Nothing was being recognized or responding so I went back in to the settings & turned the Voice Control off as well as the play a tone setting. After this, the right side of my keyboard stopped responding. Really it was about 6 or 7 alphabet keys. WHAT?? Also, when I tried random computer commands, it was still playing the Voice Control "command recognized" sound? So it somehow is still activated partially even though I turned it all off completely. I tried Apple's 3 recommendations to no avail. Now what?? Rebooting didn't do a thing either but I could log in & all keys worked from the login screen. Not with the fingerprint, but with my password using the keyboard. Then, the SAME issue once logged in. Ok so hard reboot right? EVERY HARD RESET REQUIRES A PASSWORD that if you can't type, you can't do it. I scoured the internet on my old 2015 MA & found a way to put a virtual keyboard on my M2 screen. Go to System Settings, Choose Keyboard, Input Sources, Select Show Input menu in the menu toolbar, Click the Input menu bar Icon and choose Show Keyboard Viewer. Now you have a functioning keyboard on your screen. Praise the lawd! Go to General in Settings & try to update your software & ONLY use the virtual keyboard to input anything. Mine updated to the current 13.2.1, but with the same keyboard issue (Apple may resolve this between now & when you read this), so I decided to hard reset (in General Settings). If you are doing this DO NOT use your regular keyboard for anything, including enter, & also watch for the hard shift sign when you input. If it's showing up even though you didn't press it, you can turn it off with the regular shift key. Now you can enter your PW & get back to a factory reset. My first attempt failed (error said failed but try again later after about 2 minutes of resetting). Don't know why but I think it takes time for your WIFI to establish a new connection & maybe I didn't wait long enough? I tried again using the same method & it worked as you can see because I am typing this to help others. You also need to use your ORIGINAL PW if you had change it to a new one on set up. So no matter what, if your keyboard is partially not responding & you need to input your PW (assuming you can get past the login screen), you have this option. If nothing on your keyboard is working, I don't think you can even get to Settings except maybe with an external keyboard. Also, STAY AWAY from Voice Control for now. This Apple purchase is THE MOST upsetting & disappointing I have ever experienced in 20 years & seeing how Apple is responding so poorly to this issue is equally as disgusting. NO ONE should be required to have Apple Care when Apple releases Software that tanks their laptop. NO ONE. EVER. On top of that, their "geniuses" apparently aren't even smart enough to guide people to a resolution like I just described above. I hope that this helps a LOT of people & also that I am not in store for a bunch of heartbreak with my brand new purchase :(((((( Hey Apple, ARE YOU LISTENING?????? DO BETTER!!!
