USB Keyboard Plugged into Monitor Often Doesn't Work

After reading about and trying all the formulas that have worked for some I tried unplugging the power on the monitor without unplugging anything else and plugging it back in. Surprisingly it worked. What a flaky thing.

Just thought I'd report that none of the solutions here have worked for me. I have a mid-2014 MBP and two brand new thunderbolt displays. Plugging the keyboard into the monitor worked perfectly for about a week. Suddenly one day when I came into work and plugged in the thunderbolt cable, my keyboard refused to be recognized. I have indeed tried the extension cable trick that so many people are reporting as a solution. It hasn't worked once. I've tried plugging it into both monitors. I've tried reseating every cable in my setup, unplugging and replugging both monitors, etc. Nothing works.

The only 100% solution was to plug the keyboard directly into the MBP. That has never once given me a problem, though it does suck to have to use up one of only two available USB ports on my machine. I have two other USB peripherals and I now have to trade them back and forth or go buy a USB hub, unless I want to dive behind my monitors every single time I want to plug them in. So ridiculous for how expensive these monitors were. I had a TBD at my last job as well and it began having issues where it would flicker to black and then eventually stay black until I reseated the thunderbolt cable; after about ten minutes it would do it again. There's another thread like this one all about that particular issue too. I was expecting top of the line tech here Apple, WTH?? *SMH*

I miss Steve Jobs. 😢

I spend at least 3-5 minutes every morning rebooting my Macbook pro, swapping USB ports and unplugging things trying to resolve this problem. I have no handle on what fixes it when it suddenly starts working again.

I'm having the exact same problem. Takes a me several tries to get my usb keyboard to start working. I've done everything this thread has mentioned....

and still no love. It's very frustrating. It's like it just randomly decides when it'll start working again. I've pretty much ditched my Apple USB keyboard at this point. Logitech windows keyboard works great... pretty hysterical eh?

Have you tried Apple's USB extension cable? It definitely works. Although it's incredible they haven't fixed it yet. And they probably won't since TBD is probably on the verge of being discontinued. Nevertheless it's weak, because they're still selling stand at full price nonetheless. Eh, Apple.

Anyways, I had finally gone with the Bluetooth keyboard

I'm also suffering from a similar issue. Although I have noticed it is not just the keyboard that fails to work, my iPhone USB cable also doesn't work when plugged in to the display. This leads me to believe the problem is with the display rather than the keyboard.

I have found a simple workaround. Unplugging the display and then plugging it back in seems to bring it's USB ports back to life.

I'm inclined to think it's the display when I read your posting. When I read scoccera's experience with multiple keyboards, I still think it's the display. Just some keyboards seem to make the display happy. I took my original brand new keyboard back and exchanged it for another brand new but still had the non-functioning keyboard problem. I then discovered I think what was MichaloM's original solution of a couple of years ago: add the USC cable extension and that (cross fingers) has worked over the past year. Thanks MicihaloM! I may try your solution of unplugging the display but that is a bit tiresome. No thanks to Apple on this one.

I'm late to the party, but I followed one of the above suggestions and just plugged in the USB cable that came with my monitor—in addition to plugging in the Thunderbolt cable—and my USB keyboard works just like it should.

Had I been thinking, I would have tried that before reading this thread. I used both the USB and a DVI cable with my old MacBook Pro, so it stands to reason that just like the DVI I was using before, Thunderbolt only works the monitor, not any USB devices attached to the monitor.

Hope this helps someone else.

My Thunderbolt display centralized USB setup hooked up to a Macbook Air via the displays original Thunderbolt cord was working fine for about a year until last week when it started to get flaky about recognizing an wired keyboard and backup storage device. Things would be working fine and then the connection would drop without touching or moving any of the hardware/wires. If I unplugged the Thunderbolt cord from the Macbook Air and plugged it in again it would start up only to drop again anywhere from a few minutes to a 1/2 hour or so.

I read posts about the issue and some suggested it could be from the display not having enough power to drive the USB connected peripherals and recommended trying hooking everything up to a dedicated powered USB (and bypassing the display's centralized USB capability). So I hooked up a Sabrent 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub (Model HB-RU37) that's powered and all the USB connected peripherals have been working fine and the problem hasn't recurred. So definitely give this a try.

As far as why this wasn't an issue until a year after I started using the Thunderbolt display who knows. Perhaps whatever board inside the display is involved in this particular feature has started to fail which is something that Apple should look into given how many people seem to be experiencing the same thing for a high-premium display product.

This is strange, and it's also strange that this has been going on for years. At my office, many of the desks have thunderbolt displays and we take our laptops but not necessarily the monitor when we move desks. I didn't have this problem with the first monitor in this office, but I've been having it on a daily basis since moving to a new desk with a different (although supposedly identical) Thunderbolt monitor. Perhaps it's a manufacturing defect with some of the monitors (or some of the keyboards).

I have found that the only time my Apple Extended Keyboard won't work properly when plugged into any Mac running any OS is when "Mouse Keys" are enabled. The Mouse Keys (accessibility feature) effectively hijack the 10-key keypad to turn the keys into pointer direction points. It's mighty handy in certain circumstances but I find myself going to the keypad way too often in the normal course of business to allow Mouse Keys to have full reign. SO, if you extended keyboard isn't working properly (you can't use the 10-key pad, chiefly), go to System Preferences/Accessibility/Mouse & Trackpad and make sure "Enable Mouse Keys" is unchecked. Then click the Keyboard button just above Mouse & Trackpad and click Open Keyboard Preferences. Select "Change Keyboard Type" in lower left corner and follow the prompts. With your keyboard plugged into a USB port on any Mac (desktop or portable), any OS. I've been working on Mac for 28 years and have ALWAYS upgraded to the extended keyboard; I've never had issues with it working or not, until someone turned on Mouse Keys. 🙂 Hope that helps and that it's not too ridiculously late.

Had this problem too, all Apple hardware (brand new MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch Mid 2015; brand new 27-inch thunderbolt, new apple keyboard, Magic Mouse over bluetooth).

Using the keyboard extension cable solved the problem for me.

I fought this issue for many months (Mac Book Pro, Retina 15; Thunderbolt 27"). I was constantly unplugging and replugging my keyboard from my Thunderbolt monitor in order to get it to recognize the keyboard.

One day, I picked up an Anker 4 port USB hub (Amazon item# B00IJ331WY). I plugged that into my Thunderbolt USB port and my keyboard into the Anker USB hub. From then on, no more keyboard connection issues.

So, I'm sure this is similar to the USB extension fix others have mentioned. (Note that I did have a really short USB extender that came with the keyboard, but it did not fix the problem.)

So 4 years and 8 pages of replies later and the solution is go buy a USB cable extension so you can use your brand new keyboard on a brand new thunderbolt display connected to a brand new $2000+ apple laptop?

Does apple monitor these forms? I can't believe there isn't a bug logged/software solution for this.

I have a Topre Realforce keyboard, and on mine, my keyboard would stop working if I used it to wake up my MBP. I'd have to unplug it plug it back into the Display. I wasn't sure if the extension cable trick would work with me, since I have a different keyboard from everyone else here, but sure enough, it worked!

I wonder if it's an inductance issue, or a resistance issue. I'm tempted to go buy a ferrite clip to see if that works just as well as the extension cable.