Keyboard stops working a few minutes after boot

This sounded like a promising fix, but it didn't work for me. I rebooted into "safe mode", then rebooted as normal. I was immediately able to lock the keyboard up by using the Spaces Ctrl keys, as before.

This problem is getting old and I'm considering more drastic fixes, such as reloading the computer. Is anyone familiar with specific drastic measures that may fix this problem?

That's a bummer that it didn't work for you. I haven't had the issue since the "safe mode" boot up. I was pretty much at the frustration level you're at. I was ready to pop in the Snow Leopard DVD and refresh the computer and restore my data from Time Machine.

I really don't use spaces so now I'm going to try using spaces and see if the problem pops up again. Hope I don't break my machine but hey that's what I do best! 😁

The fun of being an IT professional is breaking your personal machine and then beating it up to fix it.

I sure do hope that Apple is aware of this most annoying issue and releases an OS update to resolve it!

Best wishes ...

+1 on the Lion Mission Control + keyboard shortcuts problem!

My keyboard's stopped working 3 times today - until now only a restart has cleared it...just waiting for it to happen again, so I can see which cure works.

Thanking you all for the tips.

OK, there it goes again...after changing to desktop 3 in Mission Control...Voilá, no more keyboard control.

Very interestingly, ALL the keystrokes required for Mission Control STILL work. Nothing else has an effect.

However, if you open the Keyboard Viewer ALL keypresses still show up in it.

What CAUSED it?

No signs of anything particular in the system logs.

I THINK it's got something to do with Mission Control keys, but I'm not sure.

What can you DO?

Workaround for now is: KILL THE DOCK!

...and how do you kill the dock without a keyboard?

In Finder navigate to and start the Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder find the dock process and zap it with the end process button. => The dock restarts and, what-do-you-know, but your keyboard works again :-)

Actually this is an oooooold problem that existed for many revisions of Snow Leopard as well. It was fixed in 10.6.8 (IIRC) but has re-surfaced.

It was often triggered by changing spaces, but could also be triggered by other apps- the app 'Things' had a popup box to allow quick entry of a to-do that could also trigger the issue.

What seems to be happening is that the entire keyboard focus is not being released- so keypresses still go to Mission Control/Spaces instead of to the foreground app.

However... there is an easier workaround than killing the dock- because global hotkeys still work.

If you press;

CTRL-SHIFT-EJECT

that will blank your screen. Wiggle your mouse and the screen will return and you'll magically have your keyboard focus again. Happy days.

I have reported this (again) to Apple, but don't hold your breath- the last time this happened it wasn't fixed for about 5 or 6 point releases of Snow Leopard. 😟

That's unusual because I've never experienced this issue until the Lion install.

The CTRL-SHIFT-EJECT does work. 🙂

Pressing the power button for a second or two also works every time. I suppose I can live with it but when the wife or daughter use the computer and it happens to them they don't understand how to work around it and they get frustrated and complain to me about it.

I do hope Apple can resolve this issue in an update. It happens to me at least two or three times a day every day.

This same problem started happening to me this week on my MacPro5,1 running 10.7.1. This was a common problem on Snow Leopard and across several different machines that I use. (See thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2161076)

It is definitely a Spaces/Mission Conrol issue. Killing the Dock was the only SL workaround that seemed to fix the problem for me then. The frustrating thing is the problem comes and goes, and has now started in Lion after 2+ months. The other thing I noticed today is that using the Mission Control jestures to switch spaces does not trigger the problem, only the keyboard shortcuts do.

I am glad to hear about the CNTL-SHIFT-EJECT solution. This did seem to work for me today and is much more convenient than having to kill the Dock.

I wish Apple could track this one down and squash it once and for all, because it is extremely annoying!

Agree with everyone, an annoying and even a mission critical bug like when taking a business customer call and not being able to record what they are saying!

Everyone, please report this here to Apple as a bug. It takes 5 minutes. The more people that report this, the more likely Apple will pay attention and fix this.

Updating with what I had to do to "fix" the problem.

I called Apple support and they walked me through what they thought would fix the problem. In particular, they had me do some sort of hardware reset. After this reset, I would no longer get a login prompt after rebooting;the MacBook would get stuck on a gray patterned screen. The Apple support person was unable to get me past this new problem, so she had me go to an Apple Genius Bar, which was conveniently a block away.

The support person did a non-destructive reload of Lion. Did nothing. I had a good Time Machine backup from immediately before the upgrade to Lion, so the support person did a destructive install of Lion.

I went back to my office the next day and ended up doing three reinstalls of Lion. The first time, I restored all my home directory files, settings and applications from the Time Machine backup. Both the desktop switching lock-ups and not getting a new login screen occurred. I did a destructive reinstall of Lion and only restored settings and my home directory. The problems reoccurred. Finally, I did another destructive reinstall, restored only my home directory and reinstalled the applications I absolutely needed. The problem has not reoccurred.

So anyway, I fixed the problem on my MacBook Pro after about a day of repeatedly reinstalling Lion and restoring files/software. I've been cautious to only about reinstalling applications, fearing that one of the applications I had installed before Lion had tickled the behavior.

Interesting enough I recently dusted off my Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Trackpad. Since using this combination I have not experienced the problem at all. I think it's coincidence but I thought it worth mentioning.

It's been about 6 or 7 days now and I have not lost keyboard functionality at all. Whatever the case this is definitely a bug in the OS and Apple should absolutely find the exact cause and remediate it quickly.

I'll post again if the problem happens to me again. So far so good though (for a week anyway).

I agree that CTRL-SHIFT-EJECT is the least disruptive solution right now. It locks the screen. I wonder if activating the screen saver would do the same thing? I have my screen saver set to a hot corner. And when it comes up it immediately locks the screen. Perhaps it's the screen locking or login window that temporarily fixes the issue?

I would use the hot-corner with caution if you have security settings configured to require a password to unlock. Both with SL and Lion I have had the keyboard problem fixed by activating the screensaver, but I have also experienced situations where that did not correct the issue (again both in SL and L). I don't know if CTRL-SHIRT-EJECT does something additional that the hot-corner does not. It is conceivable given that the former is a keyboard action.

Bottom line, if you do try to correct the problem by activating the screensaver, make sure you have an alternative way to log into your Mac if the keyboard remains unresponsive. Otherwise your only other option is to power cycle, which is obviously not a clean way to recover.

Having a similar problem, except no keys working. Power+ctrl+cmd works stll for a soft reboot, but it reboots back to the same state.. it's obviously not hung, just mouse and keyboard not working - what a pain in the ***. Any ideas?

Do you have a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, or wired?

Got a bluetooth mouse - which is not working, neither is the Macbook keyboard or trackpad.. Just called tech support, who took me through the same crap I've been doing, and then booked me an appointment for hardware diagnosis. Bloody **** I say! Anyway, this seems to be a common Lion problem?