M4 mac mini doesnt recognize apple keyboards

I just received my M4 mac mini today and in the process of setting up. Was dissappointed and surprised that the M4 mac mini would not recognize nor work with several Apple keyboards I owned. These are USB keyboards that I plugged into the front ports of the Mac mini using a USB A to USB C adapter. When the mac started up, the usual pop up that the keyboard wasnt recognized came up, had to press the key to the right of the left shift key. Came back that it wasnt recognized, so I skipped that, identified the keyboard as ISO standard. Then other windows popped up later that I had to type my apple ID and password. It would only allow me to type one letter of my password, and then would not recognize any input. Tried it with another apple keyboard, same thing. Finally I tried with a non-Apple keyboard (matias wired mechanical) and it worked. So why is the M4 mac mini not compatible with apple wired keyboards????

Even my M1 Studio Max works with my Apple keyboards!