Keyboard light MacBook pro, Lion

i have the EXACT same issue!! there's no option for me to turn on my keyboard illumination in the settings. everything works in windows though......

EDIT

lab tick worked (feels weird to have my keyboard lights back...!!), but that's not the point. it should just work normally.

F5 and F6 still won't adjust the brightness.

This issue started occuring with me after a software update last week.

I have been through the steps with an apple care rep including:

- SMC reset

-Parameter reset

-time machine restore point to 30 days prior

-reinstalling lion

Non of these have had any success. Labtick has been the only semi fix , but F5 and F6 are still unresponsive. Software is definitely not recognizing hardware properly. Any other suggestions at this point?

dann959

No further technical suggestions from me I'm afraid, but if you haven't done so already can you please report the bug here please?

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Apple will only fix it if it affects enough people, so hopefully if everyone on this thread makes a formal report then it will add to the momentum.

Cheers, Chris

I've still got this problem too. Have submitted a bug report.

What sort of Mac do we all have, mines an A1226 Macbook pro. The one with the silver keyboard.

The poor things been through the ringer this year. It had that NVIDIA manufacturing defect so Apple replaced the logic board for free, afer 3 years. Then I installed Lion 3 days after I got it back. I thought the new logic board killed the backlights and never had it checked out but now I am sure it's the same problem we all have got. Then a month ago the hard drive died, so I replaced that, now the left fan has died. But i continue to love this mac!! It's like keeping a trusty old 80's BMW on the road.

i have the mid-2009 13" macbook pro.

weirdly, when i start my computer up in windows 7 using bootcamp - my backlight works fine. i can even control the brightness using "fn + f4/f5" (or whatever the key is).

when i restart into lion, my backlight works again!! but it's not controllable by the function keys. it's effectively stuck at the brightness.

i filled out a report, as mentioned above, but frankly i'm really ****** off about this. on the surface, it may seem like a relatively minor thing... my computer doe still work after all. but when a feature, that was working perfectly fine before, breaks... shouldn't that get fixed? this is a bit ridiculous.

Mine (the A1226) is also Mid-2009.. .I guess there could be a pattern here if they'll all the same vintage.. Same controller or something.

Yeah Apple should fix it, especially since that freeware app allows it to be turned on, it must be a pretty simple thing to fix. I guess it's lost in their pile of to-do's....

Running an A1278 for reference, and submitted the bug report earlier today.

If running lab tick, one thing you can do is assign your F5 and F6 keys in advanced preferences to control the keyboard dim/brightness level. However they will only work as standard function keys in this manner, so you will have to hold the fn button while hitting f5 or f6.

Its close, but still not the way things are supposed to be. Certainly not as annoying as having no backlight control at all. Anyone reading this thread with similar issues should definitely submit a bug report to apple.

after fiddling with labtick some more, the add on although proven to be helpful in this mess, also has its own short comings and bugs.

The shortcut keys that you can adjust in the preferencesdont always seem to funtion either, especially if the computer comes back from sleep or a restart, I have found sometimes you have relaunch the application for those settings to take action once again.

The manual slide guage in the drop down icon from your tool bar is the only solid tool for adjusting the keyboard brightness.

You must also make sure you check the preferences to launch labtick on startup not only in the labtick preferences itself, but also in your user account, login start/up prefereces under system preferences. Otherwise it just won't launch on a reliable basis.

Anyone else had problems or good experience with labtick?

Mine's a MacBook Pro A1278, either late 2009 or early 2010. I haven't really played around with LabTick - I just use it to manually turn on the keyboard backlight if I'm in low light (which works), and ignore it the rest of the time.

Cheers, Chris

i don't know what happened, but my backlit keyboard seems to be working now!

i'll recount what happened:

- last night i plugged in my portable hdd, to let time machine do its thing

- i also disconnected my mbp from the power... just to condition it as it had been plugged in all day

- woke up this morning to find that my laptop off. turned it on.

- it took a little while to boot up for some reason, but everything was just as it was the night before

- there was a problem with the clock! mail and itunes both popped up with errors saying the clock was wrong. i went to the preferences panel, it had already adjusted itself.

- my keyboard is now lit! the F5 and F6 function keys work!

- it's even listed in the keyboard preferences panel.... it was NOT there before.

i'm not running labtick, and my os x is updated (except for the most recent java update).

and unfortunately, i have NO idea what i did....

qtrules,

Did you let your macbook run on battery overnight to the point where it drained the battery? or did it do an auto shutoff from inactivity?

i think the battery drained. I have it set to not shut down due to inactivity.

Flipping **** this is funny...

Tonight I replaced my left hand fan in my MBP ... and now the backlight is working fine.

I can only presume ... the backlight cable was not quite in place, or the light was disabled while the faulty fan.

Maybe check your fans are working with SMCFanControl ... or run Apple Hardware Diagnostics..

Unfortunately I've tried draining the battery completely down, and and that did not remdy the problem.