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Macbook Pro keyboard wont light up

on January 2012 I bought a new macbook pro for about a month now my keyboard has been having problems as in some days it will work and some days the icon will have an x through it when i try lighting up the keyboard. I really don't know why this is happening and how I can get this fixed

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), nothing was spilt on it

Posted on May 19, 2012 6:48 AM

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Posted on May 19, 2012 7:08 AM

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4882

8 replies

Dec 11, 2012 3:18 AM in response to Jake Guzzardo

The keyboard is sensitive to the natural light. the apple bods have gone over the top on this, but its still quite a cute feature. if there's enough light in the environment, the keyboard will dim, it just happened to me as i opened my curtains, and the lights went out. close the curtains, Hey presto!! Back on!! They must have far too much time on their hands... I like it tho, 🙂 cute on a stick!!

Jan 31, 2013 8:35 PM in response to Jake Guzzardo

This has been happening to me recently with my MBP as well, but only when plugged in to an older power cord from the old white MacBook. It does not happen on battery, and does not happen on the power cord that came with this MBP. The keyboard does not light, and hitting either the brighter (F6) or dimmer (F5) button makes the keyboard backlight icon appear on the screen but it's greyed out with a circle with line through it symbol under the icon for the backlight and above the marks where it normally indicates how intense the brightness happens


I have in the past had a similar problem where the internal speakers would not work, hitting any of the speaker buttons would show the speaker icon on the screen, greyed out, with a circle with a line through it between the speaker icon and the marks showing how loud it is. In addition, when I went to the System Preferences while this was going on and I looked at Speaker, it said I did not have an internal speaker installed. What fixed this temporarily was flashing the PRAM, but it would come back again at random times.


The keyboard light problem always fixes itself though I haven't figured out when yet (maybe when I unplug the old power cord? maybe with time?) so I haven't needed to try flashing the PRAM. Next time though I am going to check in System Preferences to see if it thinks I don't have a keyboard installed or something. (I mean, the keyboard *does* keep working, but we'll see.)

Mar 20, 2015 9:27 AM in response to Jake Guzzardo

Cover the area near the camera (this is where the light sensor is) and press the F6 key again. It should work now.


The reason why it isn't working in areas with natural light is that your computer KNOWS you don't need it. To change this, so you look super fly with your lit up keyboard, (and unnecessarily drain your battery) head on into your settings, and uncheck the selection that says "Adjust keyboard settings in low light". Then you can look super cool at Starbucks drinking your tea latte with your lit up super fly keyboard, in the middle of the day.


Hope this helps!

Macbook Pro keyboard wont light up

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