Mid 2011 Macbook Air - Yosemite keyboard and trackpad stopped working, the only button that worked was the power button, only one USB port works.

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Mid 2011 Macbook Air - Yosemite keyboard and trackpad stopped working, the only button that worked was the power button, only one USB port works.

I have a Mid 2011 Macbook Air.

Upgraded to Yosemite last week.

Three days ago I was using my Macbook Air for the first time since upgrading to Yosemite. I had been using my Macbook Air for approximately 30 minutes, I was using safari and the keyboard and trackpad stopped working (would not respond). The only button that worked was the power button.

I rebooted and they were still not working. I plugged in a USB mouse and external USB keyboard, only one USB port would work (the Left USB port if looking at the screen) so I had to swap between keyboard and mouse.

After logging in there is a bluetooth icon at the top of the screen with a sawtooth line through it. Bluetooth is unavailable and the bluetooth icon is missing from the system preferences menu.

If I run a hardware test by holding D (on USB keyboard) at startup it says that no problems are found and at the conclusion of the test the keyboard and trackpad start working again. When I log on the bluetooth is working again.

I shut down the Macbook Air and when I started it again the keyboard and trackpad and right side USB ports were all not working again. I logged in using the USB keyboard and mouse and the bluetooth not available sawtooth icon had returned.

I ran the hardware test again and at the conclusion of the test the trackpad and keyboard started working again.

I have tried deleting com.apple.Bluetooth.plist and com.apple.Bluetooth.plist.lockfile from /Library/Preferences/ and tried resetting SMC and Power Functions but this did not fix the issue. The only thing that seems to work is running a hardware test - obviously I don't want to do this every time I use the computer.

I do not believe any hardware is faulty/damaged - I think it has something to do with bluetooth/Yosemite.

I do not have the Macbook with me at the moment, if you have suggestions that I can try or additional checks/info you require please let me know and I can get back to you.

Thanks,

John

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Jan 5, 2015 5:13 PM

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Answer 1

jlbowerman Author

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Jan 6, 2015 1:37 PM in response to jlbowerman

The problem occurs when booting in safe mode too.

Please help. Any suggestions (beside re-installing OS) greatly appreciated.

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Answer 2

Jan 28, 2015 5:05 PM in response to jlbowerman

I have similar problems with my 2011 Macbook Air. About 2 months ago, the trackpad and keyboard were not behaving properly. Erased the hd and reinstalled Yosemite. No problem until yesterday. Acted up again. One more time, erased the hd and reinstalled Yosemite. However, this time it only worked for half a day. The trackpad behaved erratically. This morning, it's working well, but do not know for how long. Put in a mouse, but even the mouse does not respond properly to the buttons and wheel. Is this a software problem? Anyway to downgrade to Maverick? or Lion?

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Answer 3

jlbowerman Author

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Mar 3, 2015 1:56 PM in response to jlbowerman

Update: I have erased the HD and reinstalled the OS. This did not fix the issue. After erasing the HD, before reinstalling the OS the keyboard and track pad were unresponsive.

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Answer 4

gazics

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Mar 10, 2015 6:36 AM in response to jlbowerman

Hi!

I have exactly the same problem, and I can't find any solution.

I can't even track down the root of the problem: the Bluetooth/Wifi module? The trackpad? The keyboard/top case? The logicboard?

I've tried all the usual: SMC/PRAM reset, clean install, kext cache clearing.

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated!

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Answer 5

Bitboyz

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Mar 15, 2016 6:18 AM in response to jlbowerman

At this point, I'm pretty sure this is some type of hardware failure with the 2011 Macbook Air. If you open console in OSX you'll actually see USB bus errors. Mine did the same thing, and I've seen multiple posts of the same exact issue.

I want to order a new MB to replace this one, but I'm worried that the same problem could arise. I wonder if there were any revisions to the MB during the product life cycle. Also, the 2012 MB looks almost identical in it's layout. I may try replacing it with a 2012 version just to be safe.

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