Lag in Typing in Yosemite's Mail w/ External Apple Keyboard

Since upgrading to Yosemite I have been having a very annoying problem with delayed typing response in Mail when I have my external USB Apple keyboard (current model with numeric pad). It is a sporadic issue. Typing will be responsive, then there are 2-4 second delays in response. I have only witnessed the issue with Mail and when using the external keyboard. Problem does not occur in other programs or when using my MacBook Pro's built in keyboard. Nor did the problem exist prior to upgrading to Yosemite.


My equipment is a late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina. When on my desk, I have it connected to a 23" Apple Display (original LCD), USB Apple Keyboard, Logitech cordless Trackman, and a Drobo firewire external drive.


Has anyone else witnessed this issue? Or have an suggestions on correcting?


Thank you in advance!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10), Mail

Posted on Nov 1, 2014 5:46 PM

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588 replies

Jan 14, 2015 12:16 PM in response to Crumeed

this is based on what research? that people used to wait until 'v3' to install a new OS?? i've been using macs since 1997, and have seen people buy new macs with new OS's, or update their current macs...whenever it suited them. so .1 updates, or point-whatever. and more users complaining about glitches? i live on forums like this one, and macrumors (for example), and EVERY new version of OS X has people who are happy, and people who are not. as far as i can see, EVERY point version of an OS could be called a beta...nothing's ever really finished, just, at some point, abandoned...and then there's a new OS.


personally, am very happy with 10.10.1...except, of course, for the mail lag.

Jan 14, 2015 2:00 PM in response to Crumeed

Any .0 version of system software is a public beta: it is only when real users with bazillion different Mac setups (both hardware and software) use the new OS that its glitches can be found.


The problem with this "wisdom" is that it's not true in this case. I used Yosemite beta starting in July, along with thousands of others.

The Mail typing lag appeared after the full release.

A bug can appear in any release. It can be caused by a fix for another bug.


It's easy for tech-savvy Mac users to forget that there are tens of thousands of Mac users that just click the update button and never notice problems.


This is a very annoying bug, especially for touch typists. It's weird that it apparently doesn't affect everyone, but is easily demonstrated by those who are affected. But it's not typical of Yosemite, the most stable and smooth Mac OS I've ever used (starting with Mac OS 4).

Jan 14, 2015 2:09 PM in response to Alf Megson

Does anybody know of anybody who has Yosemite installed who doesn't have this bug? It might be worth comparing notes with them.

I'm running a 2008 8-core Mac Pro with Yosemite (always upgraded. Haven't done a clean install in a long time). I'm NOT seeing the problem there, but I am seeing it on my Late 2013 Retina 15-inch MacBook Pro. I'm just guessing here, but when the delay occurs I sometimes see a beachball for a fraction of a second. It's possible that my 8-core machine can handle whatever the heck Mail is doing enough to not show the delay but could still be having the underlying issue.

Jan 14, 2015 2:16 PM in response to Andrew-StL

Just for additional fodder, I noticed something interesting today. I had a lag that actually stayed. Meaning, I typed a few characters of a word then stopped typing and those characters never showed up. When I moved the mouse with the trackpad, they showed up. So I got to thinking, what if I typed gibberish with my left hand while moving the trackpad with my right. While I moved the mouse around, the lag didn't happen. What this means? Who knows. But I'm prepared to say that this is a deep level bug in Apple Mail and NOT related to any third-party software. I've never seen the delay on any other app. I've started to type my emails in TextEdit and copy paste them into new messages. It's driving me mad. If 10.10.2 doesn't fix this, I'm going to be looking for alternatives to AppleMail.


Also, I've opened a bug with Apple (Bug #18774590) and have been regularly updating it with the results of my experimenting. I doubt anyone's reading it but it makes me feel better.

Jan 14, 2015 2:17 PM in response to Thirdwaver

I'm running a 2008 8-core Mac Pro with Yosemite (always upgraded. Haven't done a clean install in a long time). I'm NOT seeing the problem there

FWIW, I see it on a retina iMac 4GHz i7 with 32 GB RAM, a 3 T Fusion drive with almost 2T free space, and Radeon R9M295X 4096 MB.

It's plenty fast on everything else I do, and I see no other glitches.

This riMac was hand migrated from an older iMac that was running Yosemite.

Has anyone seen the issue on an out-of-the-box new Mac?

I've seen one report that a different user account doesn't show the problem, but I don't know how long one would have to test.

Jan 14, 2015 2:23 PM in response to Thirdwaver

I typed a few characters of a word then stopped typing and those characters never showed up. When I moved the mouse with the trackpad, they showed up.


I've experimentally stopped typing when a character doesn't show up several times. I see sort of what you saw. If I just stop typing, nothing appears on screen until I do something else, like type a space or command S. I don't think this happens all the time.

My impression is that all characters are held in a cache, and eventually appear. Does anyone have the feeling that that's wrong?


Also, I've opened a bug with Apple (Bug #18774590) and have been regularly updating it with the results of my experimenting. I doubt anyone's reading it but it makes me feel better.


It's probably automatically fed into a database. Because of an e-mail glitch at Adobe, I was once included in an internal developer mailing list for GoLive developers. The matrix of bugs was very extensive.

Jan 14, 2015 2:31 PM in response to Klahane

IIt occurred to me last night as I was going to sleep that the posts on this topic seem to appear in a flurry around the same time every day and it made me wonder if evrybody who is experiencing it is in the same part of the world and that this was a regional issue related to a particular keyboard or dictionary.


For what it's worth, I'm in the UK but I have only just remembered what I was thinking now that I am away from my Mac So I can' tout it to the test.

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Lag in Typing in Yosemite's Mail w/ External Apple Keyboard

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