Slight keyboard lag on Macbook Air 2020, Ventura 13.2

A few weeks ago my laptop started to get a tiny but noticeable keyboard lag, maybe 1/10th of a second between hitting a key and it showing up on the screen. I think it used to be intermittent and would resolve when I restarted, but now it's permanent.


Details: Macbook Air M1, 2020, 8GB memory, MacOS 13.2 Ventura.


Things I tried that didn't work:


- Restart: I think it used to help, but doesn't help now.

- Kill any background processes consuming CPU.

- Check temperature: laptop is not hot and CPU usage very low.

- Disable bluetooth: I get the same lag on the laptop keyboard with bluetooth disconnected. I also tried disconnecting and reconnecting bluetooth accessories while in Safe model.

- Disable "slow keys" in Settings.

- Reset SMC: Apple says you don't need to for Apple Silicon macs, a restart is sufficient.

- Reset NVRAM: `sudo nvram -c`.

- Kill bluetooth daemon: `sudo pkill bluetoothd`

- Quit apps running in background. (Alfred, Rectangle, Dropbox, System Monitor, Itsycal).

- Connect power cord.

- Try lag in different apps. I get the lag in vscode, sublime, and Apple Notes

- Run apple Diagnostics. Couldnt' find any errors.

- Start up in safe mode.

- Run CleanMyMac. CleanMyMac and ran the following: "free up ram", "run maintenance scripts", "flush DNS cache"

- Delete files from /Cache/.

- Reinstall MacOS Ventura (2023-01-26), took about 45 minutes.

- Disable all "allow in the background" apps.

- Call Apple support. They only recommended disabling the "slow keys" setting, didn't have any other ideas.

- Run EtreCheck (report below)


I thought about taking it in to an Apple store but I'm not confident they'd be able to do anything for me if I can't find anything online about this problem.


MacBook Air 13″

Posted on Jan 30, 2023 10:10 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 8, 2023 12:18 AM

Looking on the internet, I found this MacOS Monterey Keyboard lag | Apple Developer Forums


And effectively, if I connect a USB keyboard, the problem disappears.


This is a problem of Ventura with Bluetooth or with the native keyboard.


It seems it is a regression in the development of the MacOS.



Similar questions

4 replies

Feb 1, 2023 9:09 AM in response to tomasofromcambridge

Hello tomasofromcambridge, 

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities. You’ve done some extensive troubleshooting on your own already. 


To find out more, can you check how the keyboard performs in a new user account on your Mac? 


  • Add a user or group on Mac. Once a new user account has been created, you’ll need to log out of your own account and into the new one to test.


Do you notice any similar issues with external keyboards connected with Bluetooth or a cable? 



Cheers! 

Mar 8, 2023 12:09 AM in response to SnickZ.

The problem started just after installing Venture!!!!


If all is correct with the previous version, why do we need to check things we never touched before?

It sounds as if the fault was ours!


I have the same problem, but it is constant.

Include the activation of the caps-lock, which makes it maddening to try to create text or program with the computer.


The lag of my keyboard is more significant. Sometimes it writes the letters in a different order than what I key-pressed or presses more letters than the ones I keyed.


Writing texts (like this) takes a lot of time, and I need to correct the text constantly.

The computer becomes unuseful!


I'm going to give the computer to be repaired. I can't work with this problem.


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Slight keyboard lag on Macbook Air 2020, Ventura 13.2

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