Magic Keyboard Touch ID not working consistently

If anyone is in the warranty period, they might be able to take it to Apple or an authorized retailer for a claim. It's not an ideal solution, but I feel like they should honor that as a manufacturing defect. At least then Apple employees can't act like they haven't heard of this problem.

If the new board doesn't work, rinse and repeat until you get a working one.

Yep I can too confirm. With cable plugged in all the time…. Works fine.

Curious is the new macOS fixes this? I’m in the developer release. It am afraid to unplug the “wireless” lol since it’s been consistent for awhile.

It is true. The only way to make it work is to keep it plugged in. Just for the sake of curiosity I unplugged mine on Sonoma to see if the new macOS makes a difference. I will report. But I am not holding my breath and did not store the cable which powered it lol

Oh good.... i know probably several dozen people are holding there fingers crossed for you in this thread! Many have expereinced the same, to only then get ****** once their replacement suddenly started to just behave the same as before. But as we all mentioned there are is a majority who don't and have not had issues from day one.

The mystery continues as to what are the variables. It seems all these keyboards ship with the same firmware... so that can't be it.... mixed reports of Ventura potentially being the culpurate but there a few who have reverted back and had issues... keeping it plugged in seems to be the general consensus of ensuring it always works when it didn't wirelessly.

So far on Sonoma I'm getting a good result. BTW Sonoma seems pretty solid in its early release... I haven't come accross a single issue and use it for my daily use.

Thanks everyone for the reports.

Hoping macOS Sonoma will get touch id working as it should, but until then this is a complete mess.

Only thing we're certain of is that it's power related. When the keyboard is powered by cable it works perfectly, even if connected to a power brick and communicating with the computer using bluetooth. So there must be a problem with some power saving configuration that turns off the keyboard when it isn't used for a certain period of time. When it turns on again, touch id stops working.

Why this happens to only a few of us I have no idea.

Apple support tells me I have to reinstall the OS to be sure this isn't software related and only then will they check if this is a hardware problem. Has anyone here tried this? I have no intention of reinstalling macOS when I am 99% sure it won't make any difference.

That didn't work.... needed to restart with cable... then again without... after logging in wirelessly is seemed to work. BTW for those curious, after adding the keyboard back on cable i got the message saying I'm all set to Touch ID... and when disconnecting the cable...i got the message saying I'm able to use touch ID wirelesslessly. but it seems until the restart cycle with after plugged in... and after start wirelessly with typed password it continues to work wirelessley.

I'll report tomorrow and again for the next few days.

MBP m2max on the Sonoma released 7/5.

Me too. With cable plug-in Touch ID works normally.

forgetting the keyboard after OS Upgrade.... I connected via cable... seems like it works now... disconnted after it started working and curious if it will until the next upgrade

same problem on my Mac Mini M2 Pro.

i think it's the keyboard save power mode that cause the problem.

the touch id would not work after about 10 minuts if you don't use the keyboard.!

but it would work if you restart device/reconnect/turn off & on blutooth.

Really annoying.

Somone or a few are looking for an update from me.... it would appear that running macOS Sonoma may fix the issues we're talking about with the overal failiure or touch ID, my case on the mini verison. I noticed I think no change with firmware, it continues to be at 1.4.8. After a whole day yesturday undocked, I returned and plugged in my dock. About an hour after I returned and the touchid did wake up my mbp m2 max and logged me in.... This morning I needed to type my password in to enable touch ID again. But touch ID has been working all morning.... It is possible the mbp rebooted for an update.

I'll continue to report. If this continues to work, perhaps we are collectively circling a better working theory that the issues with wireless touchID (seemingly on both the mini and large version) are issues related to Ventura ?

Replaced the hd cable, c type adapter, software updates, touch ID resets with no luck. In my case it was the monitor which was around 10 years old. Maybe pre2020 monitors seem to break the touch id. Connected to a newer one and everything is sorted. (I can confirm this as a known issue on both M1 and M3 Air).

I guess I should send mine back to Amazon and pick up a fresher one at the Apple Store. Did you get yours directly from apple ?

i have tried safe mode, the same. Fresh new Mac no software installed. I have downgraded macOS version to Big Sur, now works.