Keyboard not responding after click

Question

Level 1

35 points

Keyboard not responding after click

While I am editting a document in Pages and click somewhere else in the document eg within another word, I often find that I can no longer type. Repeatedly pressing the keyboard with the same character without doing anything else will eventually get Pages to respond. It may take 4-5 presses before it takes hold. The cursor keys don't seem to be affected and always work. When it happens it seems to happen repeatedly but then will then clear and work fine for a while.

When I'm typing normally (without repostioning the cursor) I do not see the problem.

The strange thing is that I've seen this on three different computers: MacBook Pro 15" Retina, iMac 27" (Mid 2011) and a MacBook (Late 2008). All of which are using the latest version of Pages and Mountain Lion. My MacBook Pro retina was a clean install. The problem has been seen on different keyboards.

My feeling is that it is something to do with background saves of the versions, but I don't know how to prove this.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?

Thanks

Andrew

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Oct 29, 2012 3:04 AM

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Answer 1

Jeff Shenk

Level 4

2,993 points

Oct 29, 2012 4:34 AM in response to Andrew Webb1

Are you using a mouse with the laptops?

I haven't seen this myself, but the reports I've seen have involved people using Apple's Magic Mouse and not lifting their finger off the mouse after clicking, so that the mouse doesn't give control back to the keyboard.

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Answer 2

Andrew Webb1 Author

Level 1

35 points

Oct 29, 2012 5:25 AM in response to Jeff Shenk

Jeff,

I'm using a magic mouse and the laptop trackpad and have seen the problem in both situations. I know I have taken my hand off the mouse to start typing.

I tried your suggestion and kept my finger on the mouse whilst typing and sure enough you cannot type with the mouse down, but as soon as you release the mouse the typed text appears. When I'm having my problem the missing typed text never appears.

Thanks

Andrew

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Answer 3

Oct 29, 2012 6:38 AM in response to Andrew Webb1

Anderw,

You could try turning off TimeMachine. In my experience, TimeMachine has poor manners. I keep TimeMachine turned off and run it manually at intervals. Only do that if the safety of your data is less important than the occasional loss of keystrokes. It may be something else, in which case I would suggest that you keep an Activity Monitor window open and see what process is hogging the CPU when the problem happens.

Jerry

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