Wrong keyboard layout at login screen

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Level 1

27 points

Wrong keyboard layout at login screen

Hi, I have a really bizarre problem.

The layout of the Swiss-German keyboard is different from the US layout, e.g. "z" and "y" are reversed. My user password contains a "z", let's assume it's "Gazebo.1".

When I try to log in with "Gazebo.1", I get an error message. However, when I log in with "Gayebo.1", it works. Afterwards, all is in Swiss German, user interface, keyboard layout, etc. I don't even have the US keyboard layout available in the system settings.

I had the problem that the login screen was in English, e.g. I saw "Guest User" instead of the German word "Gastbenutzer". I was able to change that with the terminal command "sudo languagesetup". I guess I need to do something similar to change the startup keyboard layout.

Any hints what to do?

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014), OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Dec 25, 2015 8:29 AM

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Answer 1

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Top-ranking reply

_Pierre_

Level 1

13 points

Sep 10, 2017 9:05 AM in response to Linc Davis

While Linc Davis's solution above allows you to set the keyboard layout manually when you log in, you might be struggling with the fact that you have to do it each time you restart your Mac.

In my case, the input mode got reset to "U.S." every time, even though I was only using a keyboard with another layout. I found the solution on stackoverflow: Mavericks input source is set to US keyboard in login screen - Ask Different

It involves typing these 2 commands in a terminal:

sudo cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist /Library/Preferences/

sudo chmod 644 /Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist

After that, your user's keyboard settings will be set as the default for the login screen.