Random Keys Working Sporadically

Have this issue too.

As the person above said, pressing option 5 times may work.

Another trick is to hold down the keys that are not working (all at once).

If those don't work, re-boot.... & use another keyboard 😉

I have this issue too and sincerely hope someone can help me sort through what my next step might be.

Computer in question is my beloved MBP, mid-2012, running Sierra 10.12.2. (2.6GHz, Core i7, 8Gb Ram, etc.)

For past few months, occasional keys would not work—mostly the E, but others also on an apparently random basis. After doing cleaning and etc., I concluded (without checking this forum) that it must be a faulty keyboard. So I purchased a new keyboard and replaced without too much trouble. (As many have noted, a great many very tiny screws, but managed to not lose any and all seemed to go together OK.)

But, when rebooted, the problem is worse than ever. E.g., below.

The sentence is first typed (as is this post) with my Bluetooth keyboard normally reserved for my iPad:

This is a test to see what works on the keyboard. Not very much, as you can see.

Then I slowly typed the same sentence on the MBP keyboard with the following random results:

Hs astseat s aonbderu a ce

Tsa t rknt ear t eruchs y s

Iae satk thkbdoty hy yn s

Tsae ewtos t yoa ryuc can

Other observations:

Bluetooth keyboard works fine. No issues.

MBP keyboard—all keys work if pressed enough times. Sometimes work normally, sometimes have to keep pressing repeatedly—but always will end up with appropriate letter or symbol. With one exception. The 'Caps lock' will light up when pressed, but will not remain on.

Interesting observations:

When Keyboard window is selected from System Preferences, the bottom box option (4^th down, reads “Use F1, F2, etc. keys…”) is flashing on and off. I have never seen this in any preference window.

Similarly, on the Keyboard preferences “Shortcuts” tab, the top option in the LH box (“Display) is appearing and disappearing, on and off.

I welcome thoughts and suggestions. Is it worth replacing the upper case?

I have no expertise, just being a fiddler. But it strikes me as odd that the Bluetooth keyboard works perfectly but the MBP does not. This would, all other things being equal, suggest a hardware issue to me. Might it be possible, e.g., that the MBP ribbon cable is not seated well? (I have checked and re-seated with no change in symptoms.) Is the top case somehow to blame? (I have no idea why this would be the case.) Are there software 'things' happening with the MBP keyboard that do not happen with the Bluetooth keyboard?

Thank you as always to the community!

Hey. How is your issue with the tyuio keys. My problem was so consistently (seemingly permanently) bad with the tyuio keys until I tried your tip just now of hitting the RT keys simultaneously. WOW. What could that mean. I'm gonna keep using your fix. Was wondering if you have learned more about the issue since your original post. Thanks

So after i tried all the fixes because the 5 times Option key worked only for 1 minute..So what i did in order to FIX my keyboard was that i recognise that when i was pressing keys on the right side of the keyboard for ex. Pressing all keys on the right side together .. and then trying to press my (not working keys or semi-functioning keys A,S,D) The keys worked for some time then again not.. so what i did was:

1)Power down the Mac

2)Clean the Mac Keyboard

3)Put cold air through the Keyboard

4)Start pressing all the keys on the right side and then with both my hands pressing all the keys together down with slide pressure just a bit -- Try different pressure times for ex. keep them all press for 10 sec then release.. after 5 minute that i was keep pressing the keys down..

5)Reboot my Mac and the A,S,D keys are now working like all the keys in my keyboard without any problem what so ever ...

P.s If that procedure did not work-then do the same but starting from (4) With your Mac booted to OS X u using..

I also had this problem of keys working sporadically.

I'm using a macbook pro 15" mid 2012, french keyboard, and keys from e to o , and sometimes s to f were not working.

The only solution was to wait for them to be willing to work again, or to use a bluetooth keyboard.

The probleme seemed even worse sith temperature increasing.

Today I changed the keyboard with one found here : http://esimport.fr/

I'm so pleased to be able to write a few sentences without having to check for all my E, R, T, Y, U, I, O, P, S, D or F…

Keyboard sold 75€.

I guess it would have cost me 200€ in an apple store. Not talking about the fact that the computer would have been taken for a week or so…

I hope you guys can solve your problem like I did.

Regards,

dorian-v

I was having problems with the keys between D and L. They'd work fine from a remote keyboard (usb) of course, but not on the Macbook Pro's keyboard. At first the problem was intermittent, but finally it got to the point that it seemed permanent.

OK, after ruling out the option key 5x solution, finding that mousekeys was not turned on, and trying miscellaneous and sundry other fixes found here and elsewhere, I figured out what part of the problem seems to be for me at least: bad fonts, and in some cases multiple copies of the same font

Started by disabling essentially everything but system fonts (and as I do a lot of design, there were a lot of fonts there, including some of dubious quality). Then noticed that for some reason FontBook was showing multiple copies of Times and Minion as being installed. Deleted the extra ones and now, for the time being at least, I am able to type as normal. So this may be something that you'll want to look into.

For some people it may be the Mouse Keys feature. It lets you control your mouse and press mouse buttons by using the keyboard. One way to solve this, as mentioned before is to press option key five times. You can also go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Mouse and Trackpad and uncheck the Enable Mouse Keys.

I hope this helps!

For what it's worth, I had this issue too on a 2011 MacBook Air 13" for a couple of years. Very intermittent. I tried reinstalling the OS from scratch, disabling mouse keys etc. Nothing worked, and I couldn't work out if it was hardware or software.

I had my keyboard replaced by Apple 2-3 weeks ago and it's been fine since, so it must have been hardware-related. I hope this saves someone some time.

I agree, doesn't worth to waste time on this. I bought an external keyboard with a fraction of the 250euros they asked to replace it, but might not be feasible for everyone. I bought the new mbp in the meantime but the old one is still decent, except the graphics card which crashed twice so that's why i'm not sure worths to repair it. I hope this laptop is not a fail like 2011.

I agree, it is expensive - I paid £236 for a new keyboard and top case from Apple in London but it's still cheaper than buying a new MacBook. This Air is still fine and will last another 2-3 years - it also had a new battery and screen last summer and otherwise looks brand new.

Open the System Preferences go to the Accessibility option under the General find and select Mouse and Trackpad then uncheck the (Enable Mouse Keys) I hope by using this procedures you will solve your issue

I have a similar issue with keys " M N . , " however, in my case those four Keys only work while I am in the Microsoft Word application for Mac OS X. as soon as I leave the word application those keys stopp functioning regardless if I'm in terminal or finder or anything. !?

Your solution absolutely worked.

Also my TYUIO keys were absolutely not working anymore (and yes, I also cleaned my keyboard keys, removed them, also installed/used different keyboard languages etc) but nothing worked.

I opened font-book and I noticed that on "user level" the "Dancing" font was selected. I remember this, as I manually installed it 2 years ago and it is not a common font being used online. As I didn't need this font anymore, I deleted it and right away the TYUIO keys became responsive immediately. Perhaps for other people they should look for duplicate fonts (as suggested by Tzacatzac) but for me it worked by deleting an obsolete font type.

So this seems to be a software issue NOT a hardware issue.

I too had this problem. Certain keys (e,r,t,y,u, and i, specifically) were only working sporadically for weeks. I tried all the software suggestions provided by Apple and other users, but nothing really worked. I could easily determine if it was a software issue by logging into Microsoft Windows boot camp, which I have installed. The keys worked sporadically on that OS as well.

Hence, I finally took off the keys that were causing the problems and cleaned them and the area on the laptop underneath them. Here's a link to the Youtube video tutorial I usedto help pry them off properly. Believe it or not, I used a shop vacuum to really suck up as much as possible. I am careful with food and beverages around my Macbook Pro 13" late 2011, but nevertheless, I found quite a bit of dust and hair accumulation underneath the keys and on the board itself. After doing this, I have had zero problems with any of my keys.

I have a problem with one key: b key. It is not a keyboard problem since I have the same issue switching to a different keyboard. And if I have my wife use this keyboard on her iMac she has no problem with the b key. The keyboard I routinely use is a wired keyboard but even if I change to a wireless keyboard I have the same problem. I conclude that this must be a hard drive glitch. Apple tech support suggested I reset PRAM which I did but no help. The problem is not consistent but instead sporadic. Right now, as I type this I cannot reproduce a problem with the B key. Years ago, when I was a PC user I had this problem with a Gateway computer. Gateway ended up sending me a new computer. It's hard for me to understand how this problem can occur.