Media keys not working in El Capitan

Question

Media keys not working in El Capitan

My media keys are not working on my Mac. Pressing play doesn't open iTunes automatically. This issue occurs across all users, even newly created users, and all applications.

Here's what I've done so far:

Checked to ensure "Use all F1, F2 keys as standard functions keys" is disabled. I've enabled and disabled this also.
I don't have chrome installed. I did, but did not use Google Play (I see this is common).
Booted into known good operating system, the keys work here.
Deleted most preference files from the system preferences that I feel could be affecting it
Copied across the rcd.app from my known good install, along with the associating launch agent
Unloaded and loaded the rcd kext from launchagent
Used safe mode and Onyx to clear all caches.
Ran fsck and used Onyx to reset file permissions
Reset ACLs for my user
Removed Plex, iControl and Adobe Premier Pro

I'm running 10.11.5 beta 4 (build 15f31a). This issue has been occurring on non-beta releases as well. It has been submitted as a bug using the feedback assistant, but I have not received a response. I cannot think of when the issue begun, just that it's been ongoing for a few months now. I'm getting to the point where I should probably do a fresh install, but wanted to see if anyone else had any suggestions first.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on May 4, 2016 4:01 AM

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Answer 1

May 9, 2016 9:41 AM in response to jkennard_2002

If you look in Activity Monitor, you will see "rcd" in red. This has been an issue for me for quite some time. rcd is related to Front Row which is related to why the media keys not working in iTunes.

This odd behavior is has strange consistency. Sometimes the issue is present, no matter how many times I've restarted. Then it'll "just work fine" again. Then any time later (few days, few weeks), it will return and stay however long it wants.

Force quitting the process doesn't seem to help and all the steps you've done do not change it. I feel this is a bug with the rcd process. I have not been able to figure out any other details about it, but I'm glad I at least know what it is

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Answer 2

May 16, 2016 12:23 AM in response to David De Alejandro

Hi David,

Mine differed from yours a little in that rcd was never in a state where it was stalling (shown in red). I could pull the process up manually from CoreServices, and it would run just fine, but never allowed a response within any applications.

The only way I could resolve this was to do a complete reinstall. I restored all data from my Time Machine backup using Migration Assistant, so I'm assuming an archive and install would work as well.

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