Top Row of function keys not working

Well, this frustrated me for about 30 minutes. Same issues you all talked about. no volume, no brightness, power button not working. CMD+OPTION+ESC did nothing. Even the drop down reset wouldn't work. After trying several above solutions without success, I did what I should have done first: held down the power to turn off the computer and then turn it back on. All good now.

Use default options F1 2 3 4 5 etc...

Please PRESS "fn" and F5 6 7 8 9 etc... it work, good look =)

So grateful for Pierre Degaillande's advice, posted here over 5 years ago...

Just received shipment of a brand new MacBook Pro from Apple.

Straight out of box....function keys did not work.

Pierre's solution was absolutely spot on for me.

Many thanks Pierre.

..now to figure out why 2 finger scrolling on haptic touchpad also fails to work.... :-(

Thanks!!! Found this reply for my daughter and fixed her issue. Much appreciated!! 🙂

I'm having the same problem. However, I have tried checking and unchecking the "Use all F1..." option over and over, restarting with it both on and off but have had no luck. Unfortunatly, every post I find from people who have the problem seems to be solved by that option.

I would be immensly greatful for any help. (I can stand not having a brightness or volume option on the top row.)

I have the same problem. The keyboard isn't faulty as the function work fine in bootcamp. I spent over an hour on the phone to apple support and the only resolution they could give me was to re-install OSX. I haven't done this yet as I don't have a spare hard drive to back up my data so I'm just having to put up with it for now.

Yea, I assumed that the only reply I would get is to re-install OSX and that really isn't an option for me either. They stopped functioning immediately after an update so I cannot believe that there would only be two of us with the problem...

You arent. I've bought 3 keyboards from different places and none work either. is it really and OSX problem?

Knowing how frustrating this was (enough to make me just give up and deal with it) I should have posted a response when I fixed the problem on my machine. >.< Anyway, I didn't so much fix the problem as something went wrong during the next update and I had to repair/reinstall my OSX.

App. if you transfer a user to a computer running a newer version of the OS, which I did when I got my Air, it can cause problems with the system files. They can eventually compound after each update and do things like deactivating your function keys or, as was my case, make it unable for you computer to start... at least that’s what the genius at the Apple store said is fairly common. He added that the same problem could occur when you update to a new OS. (i.e. Snow Leopard to Lion) Probably a problem Apple should address since one big tags of buying a new mac/upgrading the OS is that you wont have to go through the hassle of moving/reorganizing like we were tired of doing with PCs. Or they could at least warn us that there is a less than slight possibility that using the migration application that they suggest or get the new shiny OS they are pushing to you will cause problems down the line.

I spent over an hour trying other fixes recommended on Apple Support docs but this fixed the problem! It was so easy all along...thanks!

Thank you. Your post helped solve the function key problem.

Regards.

Sheldon R

Yes That Happened to me. i had been searching the web on my mac looking for awnsers. finally, i found yours. thankyou so much. never thought it would work again. i held down the on/off button on the macbook, crossed my fingers, and Bam ! it worked. thankyou so much. 🙂