Caps Lock Light Inverted on Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina.

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Level 1

2 points

Caps Lock Light Inverted on Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina.

I bought a brand new MacBook Pro a few weeks ago and after migrating all my stuff over from my old (but still functioning) MacBook, I noticed that occasionally the capslock light would just turn on, thus making it inverted so when I pressed it to turn the light off, all my typing became in caps.

I searched online and found a bunch of forums where people had this issue ranging from about 2005 to 2011, but I couldnt find anyone who was still seeing it today... Frustratingly, none of the forums had any solutions other than 'live with it' or take it to Apple...

I have tried every software solution under the sun, reboot, resetting PRAM and SMC, running Disk Utility in recovery mode, resetting keyboard preferences, even a straight reinstall of OSX Mavericks which took all night. Still the issue comes back shortly after booting up. Not immediately, but after a few hours, sometimes minutes, the little green light flickers on and off, eventually staying on...

Is this a hardware issue? Or could it be some obscure peice of software thats causing this? I do have allot of utilities installed such as BetterTouchTool and HyperDock, but if it was them, quitting them and rebooting would have fixed it right?

Does anyone else have this incredibly frustrating issue!? I'm really hoping noone has and its just a fluke hardware problem! That way its just a straight swap/repair and I dont have to worry about tracking down some (or many) rouge programs that launch at login due to some app/apps I installed ages ago and didnt delete properly (that is my greatest fear!) Unless theres some log somewhere that could tell me what program is messing with my capslock light!

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), 2.6 GHz i7 - 16GB RAM

Posted on Jan 5, 2014 3:07 PM

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Answer 1

jpdemers

Level 1

76 points

Jan 3, 2017 12:19 PM in response to Hazza42

I have exactly the same problem with an iMac and wireless Logitech keyboard. Tried everything, as you have, and gotten the same results - at best, it goes away for minutes, but it comes back. Just started happening one day, for no apparent reason. The Keyboard Viewer is likewise confused, and shows caps lock on when the light is off. I doubt that software on the Mac controls the operation of the light on a third-party wireless keyboard; I think it's a case of the Mac not correctly interpreting what the keyboard is telling it.

Let me know if the Geniuses at the Apple store figured it out.

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Answer 2

Jan 5, 2014 3:16 PM in response to Hazza42

The Caps Lock light is under software control, and when it screws up, a Restart usually fixes it.

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Answer 3

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 5, 2014 3:19 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Unfortunately a restart only alleviates the problem for a short time before it flickers back on again...

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Answer 4

Jan 5, 2014 3:23 PM in response to Hazza42

Then you have probably loaded too much junkware on your computer. The best way to debug is to remove it all, and think deeply about installing each item before you do, then try it out for a while before adding anything else.

Too much junkware produces instability, becuase the patches that one applies get patched by the next one and the one after that. You are lucky it does not produce kernel panics.

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Answer 5

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 5, 2014 3:31 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thats what I feared. Although right now I only have what many would call the essentials, BetterTouchTool, Tube Controller (an app for controlling YouTube with my keyboard play/pause buttons) and HyperDock (a fantastic window manager) are the only ones that have settings that involve the keyboard, there arent any others that have a reason to mess with my capslock light.

Furthermore, I had all these installed on my old MacBook Pro (Early 2011) with no issues at all. It was only after I migrated when this problem started.

Could I try migrating it all back to my old MacBook to see if the probelm is carried across? If it didnt, would that indicate a hardware or even a firmware fault?

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Answer 6

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 5, 2014 3:51 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Just saw the rest of your comment, until I refreshed the page I only saw the first sentence!

As for your mention of kerbal panics, years ago where I had an appalling amount of programs installed that I hardly ever used, one day I decided to just delete everything but the bare minimum, any app that hadn't been opened in the last month went. Although I have never had a kernel panic, not one ever. Overall, all my Macs have been incredibly stable. I guess that's a testament to how rock solid OSX is, and not to my own management habits! Even today, I only have the apps I use daily installed, even if allot of them are little utilities that only have one feature that I now can't live without.

I guess it is time for a complete archive and restore, then only add the absolute essentials back in, testing them one at a time. It'll be nice to have a perfectly clean Mac again.

Before I do anything rash, though, I'll get an Apple Store appointment booked and see if they can diagnose my problem.

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Answer 7

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 7, 2014 5:37 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Ok, so I've done some testing and I may have solved my issue so I thought I'd post it here for anyone else who might be looking for a solution.

I have a little utility installed called CornerClick which allows me to click in hot corners for more options like opening apps or snapping windows etc. Very useful. Except it hasn't been updated in some time and doesn't officially support Mavericks. For a while now its been having issues like not being able to launch properly so I decided to uninstall it. Ever since then I havn't seen my capslock issue come back so I'm hoping that this little app was the cause!

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Answer 8

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

Jan 10, 2014 10:14 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Ok, final update. I'm pretty sure this has all been buried by now but...

The issue came back. I took it to the apple store and they were stumped, never seen it before. They ran a bunch of diagnostics and found that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware...

Their advice was to take it home and reset it to factory defaults, so I did. Once I removed everything from it and reinstalled OSX I noticed quite a performance increase which was a nice surprise, until the capslock light came on again.

I dont understand, I have installed nothing to this thing, its just got default software with default settings. It has no hardware faults and all my other computers, that have all the stuff installed which used to be on my MacBook, have nad no keyboard issues whatsosver.

I'm bringing it into the apple store again soon...

How can nobody know whats causing this!

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