Keyboard is Unrecognized

Question

Keyboard is Unrecognized

I have had this happen on both of my 2 iMacs, and was wondering what is the problem and if there is a fix. I bought an iMac 20" G5 Rev B this summer for my son to take to college, and after registering and booting up, it popped up a window that said "Keyboard Unrecognized" or similar with a "Next" button. On the next screen is a sideways picture of a keyboard and a request to press the key just to the right of the left shift key (Z on a US keyboard). When I pressed the key, it gave a message that I had pressed a key on the "build-in" keyboard (actual spelling) and it asked me to press a key on the "external" keyboard. We somehow got past this on the 20" iMac (I don't remember if we just closed the window or what) and it never came back. I just bought a second 17" refurb iMac (also Rev B) and it is now giving the same error. This happened on both 10.4 (as shipped) and after upgrading to 10.4.3 via Software Update. I tried closing the window, but it gives the same error every time that I start up the machine. What is this telling me? How do I get out of this?

Mac mini 1.42Ghz/80GB/512MB Mac OS X (10.3.9) iPod Nano 4GB (Black)

Mac mini 1.42Ghz/80GB/512MB Mac OS X (10.3.9) iPod Nano 4GB (Black)

Mac mini 1.42Ghz/80GB/512MB Mac OS X (10.3.9) iPod Nano 4GB (Black)

Posted on Dec 19, 2005 7:45 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 19, 2005 4:36 PM in response to danny whittington

Nobbody? Surely somebody has seen this. I have seen it on 2 iMacs, and I am a newbie!

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Answer 2

Dec 19, 2005 5:25 PM in response to danny whittington

This is the forum for iMac's, not mini's-so no,I have never experienced this.

My brothers mini did not do this either.

Try posting in the mini forum to get an answer.

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Answer 3

Dec 20, 2005 8:21 AM in response to danny whittington

I used to have a 1.5ghz 15" Powerbook and I used a Mathias Tactile Pro Keyboard on it (which I now use on my iMac iSight).

With that machine I was always getting alerted by the Keyboard Assistant's window whenever I logged out and like you I faithfully went through the steps of the exercise of getting the keyboard recognized. After a number of times, I got gave up on this and just ignored it. The best way of dealing with it is just click the red "Go AWAY!" button on the top left of the window or type Command/W to dismiss the window without doing anything. You will not suffer any typing errors if you just make it go away without going through the steps the Keyboard Assistant wants to take you through.

Griff

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Answer 4

Dec 20, 2005 10:39 AM in response to wheelchair_guy

Wired Apple keyboard as delivered. First (20") also had a wired Apple mouse plugged into the keyboard. The second (17") has a Logitech wireless MX300 plugged into the keyboard (this worked fine on my mini).

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Answer 5

Dec 20, 2005 7:47 PM in response to wheelchair_guy

Problem solved on its own. Tonight I rebooted again (my son was using it on his external disk) and it now comes uo just fine. I also created another account and it still comes up OK on the new account. Thanks everybody for your help!

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Answer 6

Dec 20, 2005 2:11 PM in response to danny whittington

Take a look see at this article as well . You might try trashing the preference mentioned in that article, restart and run the assistant...

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Answer 7

Dec 19, 2005 7:37 PM in response to Johnathan Burger

The problem I am having is with iMac G5s (2 of them that do the same thing). I said that I never had the problem with my mini.

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Answer 8

Dec 20, 2005 9:08 AM in response to Merged Content 1

But what does it mean when it says that I have pressed a key on the "build-in" (built-in?) keyboard? What is a built-in keyboard on an iMac G5 and how do I access it vs. the external keyboard?

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Answer 9

Dec 20, 2005 9:59 AM in response to danny whittington

Danny,

Did you use the migration tool to migrate data from a PowerBook to these computers? Or, what CDs did you use to install Tiger? I have seen others get similar messages when the migrated.

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Answer 10

Dec 20, 2005 10:05 AM in response to wheelchair_guy

In both cases these are freshly delivered from Apple, no data transfers and no installation of my own.

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Answer 11

Dec 20, 2005 10:21 AM in response to danny whittington

wireless or wired keyboards? apple or third-party keyboard? any usb devices connected other then keyboard?

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Answer 12

Dec 20, 2005 10:44 AM in response to danny whittington

in your accounts system preference click on login items, what is all listed there?

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Answer 13

Dec 20, 2005 11:08 AM in response to wheelchair_guy

I'll check tonight when I get home. It is whatever is stock, because I didn't change or add anything. This is just plain, unadulterated, vanilla OS X as pre-installed by Apple.

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