Swiss Keyboard Layout wrong (Sequoia)?

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Level 1

22 points

Swiss Keyboard Layout wrong (Sequoia)?

Hey, I'm having trouble finding out why this is and how to fix it.

The keyboard viewer shows the correct layout, specifically the "§ °" button in the top left.

This is exactly how the physical built-in keyboard keys are printed, the keys match up as expected.

However, when I actually press the "§ °" button on the physical keyboard, it seems switched with the "> <" button in the 2nd-bottom row. This is similar to an issue a German keyboard user was having earlier this year with Sonoma.

When I press the same buttons in the keyboard viewer, the behaviour is correct - so it is different from the built-in keyboard.

Is this a bug, or is this a setting I can change somewhere? I have not found a way to change the built-in keyboard settings...

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.0

Posted on Oct 29, 2024 5:18 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

sunflower_seeds

Level 1

8 points

Oct 29, 2024 2:45 PM in response to foghorn_4fog

I am experiencing the same problem (wrong mapping on both internal and external keyboard, but correct on keyboard viewer), but with the German keyboard.

For me, the interchanged keys are "<>" (like above) and "°^":

I tried to Tom Gewecke's tips in this thread and had the same problem as the original poster (foghorn_4fog): The Keyboard Assistant doesn't even start up. Running

sudo open /System/Library/CoreServices/KeyboardSetupAssistant.app/Contents/MacOS/KeyboardSetupAssistant

yields a new terminal window with

username: ~ % /System/Library/CoreServices/KeyboardSetupAssistant.app/Contents/MacOS/KeyboardSetupAssistant ; exit;
zsh: killed     

Saving session...
...copying shared history...
...saving history...truncating history files...
...completed.

Opening it from GUI doesn't do anything either.

Now I found a curious workaround:

The free app Karabiner-Elements lets you view and change the current keyboard type. On opening it, the type seems to be set correctly:

Once I change it to any of the other types (the WRONG ones) (yes - even Japanese), the problem is fixed!

And whenever I change it back to ISO (the correct one), after about 2 to 10 seconds the wrong mapping reappears.

This indeed suggest that it is a Sequoia bug related to Keyboard type, but it doesn't just affect a single install or country or keyboard layout.

PS: This happened after upgrading from the final version of Sonoma to Sequoia 15.1 (24B83) on a 13" MacBook Pro 2018 (4 Thunderbolt 3 ports). The external keyboard in use is the Apple Magic Keyboard without TouchID (V. 2.0.6).

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Answer 2

foghorn_4fog Author

Level 1

22 points

Oct 29, 2024 7:28 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

I did try that, but when opening Keyboard Assistant it exits immediately without opening a window - effectively, I can't run Keyboard Assistant for the *internal* keyboard it seems. External keyboards show the Keyboard Assistant prompt, but my internal keyboard seems incorrect - since Sequoia.

To me that sounds more like a bug, but I find it very strange how such a *basic* thing as keyboard layout can be affected by a bug in a mature operating system, and I can't exclude umm "operator error" :)

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

120,066 points

Oct 29, 2024 3:48 PM in response to sunflower_seeds

Thanks, very interesting! I may need to add that fix to my note.

Did you trash the com.apple.keyboardtype.plist before using the sudo command?

If it is a general sequoia problem, it seems like we should be hearing a lot more of complaints, since every keyboard Apple sells in Europe, Middle East, and Africa is the ISO type. I will be on the lookout for others and see if any other common elements are present.

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Answer 4

Oct 29, 2024 4:13 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hello Tom,

yes, I did everything you suggested in the post you linked, including trashing the plist-file.

About the fix: I don't know yet if the "wrong" keyboard type is going to cause other problems down the road...

If that happens, I will use Karabiner-Elements to rewire the two keys. I've done this before to change my "lock" key in the upper right corner to a "forward-delete" key and it works well.

But I would still be glad if Apple resolved this with a future update. The number of bugs introduced by new major macOS releases has been growing worryingly over the years and part of the Mac experience should be to not have to worry about updating your system ("It just works").