Password prompt misses to register some characters in MacOS Sequoia 15.2

markuss-work wrote:

Ah, excellent comment! On my own computer I experience this issue both when using the built-in keyboard and when using my external Magic Keyboard with the computer in clamshell mode. The Magic Keyboard can be wirelessly connected or connected using a lightning cable, the issue still persists.

Restart in Safe Mode.

This will perform a Disk Repair, clear cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts.

The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal.

Safe Mode will also eliminate Third Party Software, extensions and drivers from loading.

It will only load the Minimum amount of Core Apple Processes to allow the the computer to function at a reduced Level of Performance 

Does the issue present in this mode ?

Sometimes a Safe Boot followed by a Normal Boot will just put things right.

This is still happening. Random on every lock screen what characters will be impacted, but the missing the first keypress after clearing the contents is consistent for each lock screen: i.e. if you type every key once, then backspace, one or more of them may not add a dot to the entry, but every subsequent clearing will also miss it until it is unlocked.

I've taken to hitting every key in a row on the keyboard once to identify which keys are impacted for the current lock screen, then typing my password knowing I have to double press the first instance of the impacted keys to unlock properly (always works).

I have had no more keyboard login problems (yet) since the 15.4 update, but I also had no instances of the problem for about two weeks prior to the update, which was an unusually long span of trouble-free behavior.

One thing that gives me hope the problem may have been fixed with 15.4 is that when I logged in for the very first time after the update, the system recognized my magic keyboard touchID sensor and prompted me through touchID setup. This was an amazing and unexpected turn of events, as I could not get touchID to work under Sequoia before the 15.4 update in spite of making many attempts. Prior to the update System Settings would sometimes give indication that it was aware of the sensor but would fail on every attempt to create a fingerprint. At other times it could not even tell that I had a touchID sensor at all. Every touchID login attempt I have made since the 15.4 update has succeeded. Weird, but thank you Apple if indeed you have actually done something to fix this mess.

Ever more strange!

I can't imagine any MacOS setting that could cause this, and it looks like you have excluded hardware issues. Do you run any unusual non-Apple software, especially anti-virus or text handling utilities?

Some add-on password app or some add-on security app is malfunctioning?

(In recent versions of macOS, Safe Mode doesn't turn off everything that can be added.)

What's installed here? Please download and run (free) EtreCheck, and when the run completes share the report to the clipboard. Then open a new reply here, and press the additional-text button that looks like a printed page to get a text input box big enough to paste the hardware and software configuration report here, and paste and post that report here.

markuss-work wrote:

I still haven't seen this problem getting triggered when writing text normally in an editor (although "q" is quite rare, especially in Swedish which I use a lot). But I can confirm it happens if I first trigger the issue outside of the editor and immediately try to type a "q" in the editor.

Really? Hmmmm...

Does this sound like the same problem?

Using Serbian Cyrillic in Microsoft365 Ex… - Apple Community

Full disclosure: I know next to nothing about keyboards, changing them, or layouts. I just stick to US English (not Canadian English, which is a different layout, or any French variants, which are different still).

But apparently, when a password field is displayed, your preferred keyboard layout may be ignored and you may be switched automatically to English. I was amazed, and disappointed, to learn this. But it really sounds like what is going on in your case.

This is happening to me also. 15.3.1, M1 Studio, English/US keyboard setup, occurs on both Magic and wired (Apple) keyboards, both of which work just fine after (eventually!) unlocking. My Q key seems to always work (maybe I'll change my password to QWERTY ;-> ), M is usually the problem for me. MouseKeys is not enabled. On one occasion yesterday even repeated keystrokes did not register for an extended period and I nearly pounded my keyboard to splinters in a rage. Grrrr, fix this, Apple!!

I did see one workaround in another forum which helped me this morning: if you have multiple userIDs on the system, after your first attempt fails, (1) click on a different userID icon as if you were going to log in under that ID, (2) do NOT enter any characters into the Password field, but instead (3) click back to the desired userID icon and then enter your password. This worked for me this morning on the first attempt. Will report back here if it stops working.

I just upgraded to Sequoia 15.3 and am not having the problem now. Go figure.

To further trouble shoot this odd keyboard issue

Use a cheap inexpensive Third Party USB Keyboard

That is why I always keep a cheap usb keyboard at the ready and just incase

Test in either Safe Mode or Normal Mode if the Double Tap of a single key is required

This is real and happening with random a-z keys that can change. You need to double press for that key the first time while typing in the password box, but subsequent keypresses are fine.

Can someone please fix this ASAP?? This is incredibly annoying.

olivetriangle wrote:

@ Tom G.- Interesting you should ask about those specific letters & numbers - "789uiojklm ". Can you explain briefly why you asked? I wonder because on my brand new Macbook Air 13" M3 those exact keys didn't type out at all

It’s a pretty common settings glitch that’s normally easy to fix

Fix for 789uiojkl keys or numeric keypad … - Apple Community

markuss-work wrote:

As an example, on my computer I have English-US as primary language but with a Swedish keyboard layout, which is the same as for my colleagues Mac.

That could be the root of the problem. Perhaps the Swedish keyboards do not map correctly when using the English-US language. There's a contributor here who may have a better idea as far as keyboard issues. I'll try to contact him.

flammit wrote:

In one instance a "w" was pressed and a small pop-up with a fancy "w"-like character and a 1 underneath it appeared in the text box.

That is standard behavior for long press on w on the us keyboard layout. A letter used in Welsh, I think.