Macs Losing Keyboards

[jgmitchell]

We have an issue where our Macs (a mixture of iMacs and Mac Minis) randomly "loose" their keyboards. They're connected up but for some reason will just loose connection to the keyboard. This seems to happen on the login screen. The only way we have found of fixing this is by swapping the keyboard with another with works half of the time. The keyboards themselves are fine and not broken.

I have tried troubleshooting this with apple and they have no idea on how to sort this. Macs are running the latest version of Sierra.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[2ilent8cho]

Never experienced this, but the first thing i would try is deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist so it forgets the keyboard type then reconnect keyboard.

[mrnoisy]

Hi, are they 2012 iMacs by any chance ? we have 150+ and they do this regularly which is very annoying, we have found no solution thus far and just accept that its going to happen from time to time, usually swapping USB ports sorts them out and occasionally a swap and a reboot. What I have found which makes a bit of a difference is using the extension cables that are supplied with the keyboards, if you look down the USB theres a little V shaped notch in the apple USB, it seems to make a better connection using the extension cable. We've tried just about everything theres a lot of threads and tips online, we've tried them all and none seem to work, also recommend disabling blue tooth.

[jgmitchell]

They vary in age but i'd say the ones with the most problems are around that age. When I spoke to Apple it sounde like it was the first time they were hearing about it.

[DynamoNickev]

I couldn't believe this worked when I first tried it, but it works every time. Get a USB extension lead and plug in via that. Simple, and I have no idea why it works, but it does!

[markwilfan]

I couldn't believe this worked when I first tried it, but it works every time. Get a USB extension lead and plug in via that. Simple, and I have no idea why it works, but it does!

This ^

 

Found this out last year too

[mrnoisy]

Extension leads don't work every time, we have ones that we've put extensions on when they fail then take them off and plug them back in normally and they work, very infuriating. Tried all the tricks posted online, there was a theory that it was because they don't draw enough power at boot, so plug in a USB drive as well, it doesn't work. If anyone has any other tricks to try I'm all ears but ours have been like this for 4 years.

[DynamoNickev]

Why take them off? Leave them on, it's hardly expensive.