my wired keyboard stopped working. USB ports are fine, though.

The exact same thing keeps happening to me. Everytime Apple releases an update, I install it, restart my mac and my keyboard stops working. I do the SMC reset method as previously mentioned, but this didn't work. However, my work around is that I have a Mac Cinema display which I have connected to my 27" iMac. I plug my keyboard into that and it works fine. The issue must be something to do with the iMac USB ports, however, I have tried other USB keyboards and external hardware and they all work fine, which leaves me totaly baffled 😕

iMac model? Mac OSX version?

The first thing with hardware related issues is a SMC reset. You basically shutdown your desktop mac, pull the power cord, wait 15s, plug it back in, wait 5s, then restart.

I would do this first.

Me too, randomly, and always after switching on. Unplugging it and plugging it back in sometimes works, switching the USB port sometimes works. Frustrating problem, it just started a few days ago (Apr 1).

Mid 2012 27" iMac, OSX 10.7.5. Regular wired keyboard with numeric pad.

I will try the solution from ssls6... since it only happens once or twice a day then hard to know if it worked or not straightaway.

Cheers!

Im having the same problem Late 2012 iMac 21 Inch any resolution..... I hate the small keyboard makes short cuts very complicated.

ssls6 wrote:

The first thing with hardware related issues is a SMC reset. You basically shutdown your desktop mac, pull the power cord, wait 15s, plug it back in, wait 5s, then restart.

I would do this first.

This worked for me thanks!!!

mine is worse... 2011 imac 21.5 spilt soft drink on key board so bought new keyboard but now cant get past password to link new keyboard.... help anyone?

You can try holding the "on/off" button for like 6-7 seconds to turn it off, then tap it on quickly to make a connection.

i found that if it is often a lack of power of a power board or usb hub

I get this problem sometimes and have been successful by using another keyboard for a while and plugging the apple one back in later and it magically works. But after reading your post I tried just that... power down, unplug the power, take a break for a couple minutes, plug the keyboard and power back in, and boot up. It magically worked! So that seems to be a more effective spell than just waiting around for a while.

My wired keyboard has just started to do this, only had the keyboard 3 days and it has happened twice in the last 15 minutes. If you think powering off and unplugging the lead is acceptable on a £2k piece of kit then Apple need to take this bag of crap back

Thank you for this info; worked just as described. Although I cannot figure out why this happens intermittently. I tried a workaround provided in a similar thread which worked as well, which is to connect the usb extension cable between the keyboard's usb cable and the mac's usb inputs.

When you mention hardware-related issues, I imagine this would include faulty usb contacts at the connection end of the keyboard's cable? I have several late 2012 iMacs and usb keyboards that this issue occurs on.

Thanks again,

I have had the same problem. It started a few weeks ago when the keyboard would stop working intermittently on my iMac (bought mid 2010).

The keyboard works fine when I plug it into my MacBook Air, and the iMac USB ports work fine with any other device (from card readers to scanner). SMC and PRAM resets did not resolve the issue.

Using the extension cable supplied with the keyboard seems to have solved the problem. It is not an elegant solution as I have too much cable on my desk now, but it works.

This happened to see also.. lately, rebooted the mac and i was up and running again.

yesterday evening after a power failure , no way to get the keyboard working again.

this morning I added a short 20cm usb extension and YES i´m up and running again.

For me it comes from some electronic part where the length of the keyboard wire influence.

High frequency for the power supply of the usb port and some ¨just long enough¨wire creates an induction and the power supply stop working...

It a GUESS from my side, working a lot on different HF bands as Amateur radio, and having seen already some more very funny and weird behaves in this area...

THANKS for the tips, and replugging the keyboard without the extension , its not working anymore...

Hans