Apple wired full-size keyboard not working after OS X El Capitan update

This does work for me, however if you unplug your keyboard (which I occasionally do since it's a MBP) the next time it won't work and you have to go through the same steps all over again. This is ridiculous. Should I now get a third party USB hub so that my already overpriced apple MBP and apple keyboard would work together? 😝 Nice work apple.

And yet again my iMac is not recognizing my keyboard. I did the same steps as I usually do, since this happens frequently, and it still won't recognize it. I have powered down 4 times. NOTHING!

Similar problem on an iMac running El Capitan 10.11.2 which didn't immediately get resolved by the SMC reset. However, after much frustration, I decided to leave the iMac unplugged overnight as part of the reset process. In the morning I pressed the power button prior to reconnecting the mains as this is recommended in various place, plugged in the power and switched on with wired keyboard now attached and all worked. Prior to this I had various levels of success using a straight usb extension on the keyboard and that worked on all but one of the USB ports but I couldn't plug the keyboard in directly. A USB mouse in this port did not light up either but did in the other ports so it led me to believe that the SMC reset was capable of making a difference but the system needed a lot longer to drain any residual capacitance thus the overnight wait.

I have kept my keyboard plugged into an "extended usb hub" (i don't know technical term and I've tried uploading a photo, won't work) and my iMac has continued to recognize my wired keyboard for probably a month now. So far so good but REAL ANNOYING!

Look at this previous thread: Wired Mac keyboard not functioning properly

You have to go into system preferences, keyboard and then change the settings via the modifier keys option.

GGot the same issue on my iMac 2011 so frustrating. I'm at my five shutdown and unplug all and restart and my keyboard still doesn't work.

HOw come something so basic as a keyboard doesn't work in OS X el capitain. Very frustrating I have to work and can't use my Mac grrrrrr

Thanks Fabianer! - worked perfectly :-)

The Mac on which I was having the El-Capitan/keyboard problem is a very old model (c. 2008?...) - no such problems with my recent Mac - so if you too are having the problem on an older model, try Fabianer's solution. I had been messing about for an hour and his solution fixed it immediately, thank you thank you thank you....

"extended usb hub" was the only thing that worked for me....thankfuly we had one.

This fix is the one that worked for me with a similar set-up to yours:

"Similar problem on an iMac running El Capitan 10.11.2 which didn't immediately get resolved by the SMC reset. However, after much frustration, I decided to leave the iMac unplugged overnight as part of the reset process. In the morning I pressed the power button prior to reconnecting the mains as this is recommended in various place, plugged in the power and switched on with wired keyboard now attached and all worked. Prior to this I had various levels of success using a straight usb extension on the keyboard and that worked on all but one of the USB ports but I couldn't plug the keyboard in directly. A USB mouse in this port did not light up either but did in the other ports so it led me to believe that the SMC reset was capable of making a difference but the system needed a lot longer to drain any residual capacitance thus the overnight wait."

All I can say is that I have a <1 year old Macbook Air and a brand new apple keyboard and it works very intermittently. Regtrettably I have not yet been able to identify a pattern that leads the keyboard to be detected.

The issue is with the cable, you need to use the extension USB lead provided, this has stop all my issues. and saw online that it solved the issue to all users. Give it a try if you still have it.

Mine started to work but the H,Y,N do not work on the wired and so I've had to go back to my bluetooth wireless keyboard. I noticed this same issue with other users, any suggestions?