Xtreme Mac Mice and Keyboards on Mac Mini

[Danny11515]

Hi,

 

I have recently upgraded our Mac suite over the May half term and our supplier gave us XtremeMac wired mice and keyboards with the USB C connector/ USB A adapter. Because the mac suite needs to have a MIDI keyboard connected to the computer for the music lessons I have plugged both mice and keyboard into the USB C ports in the mac so that we can have everything connected and running perfectly because our original iMacs that we had used to have everything connected. Unfortunately I have had non stop problems from the start with students using them now where the keyboards stop working and need to be unplugged and re plugged back in or the mac needs to be restarted to allow the keyboard to work or the keyboard just decides it is now broken.

 

Has anyone else used Xtreme Mac hardware before? I have gone back to the supplier where I purchased the macs and the keyboard and mice from and mentioned the problems I am having and they have pointed the finger to Apple having the issue with the recent update they have made. Any help would be great because I feel like I am getting a visit from either a student or the music/media teacher every 30 seconds of the day.

[cnc]

Hi Danny,

 

We refreshed two of our Mac suites over half-term with Mac Mini’s and XtremeMac Wired mice and keyboards by connecting directly in with USB-C and are seeing the same issues as yourself.

It was frustrating for us as we are trialling the Mac Mini’s as a new solution replacing All-in-One iMacs and it threw us a bit of a curve ball, especially as we are trying to gain teachers confidence with the new Mac Mini’s.

 

We are trying different things at the moment…testing some with the USB-A adapters and testing some with different keyboards and mice. This has been done only this morning, and we will keep you posted if anything resolves the issues!

 

Fingers crossed we can get this resolved soon!!

[ovenchips]

Exact same setup and exact same problems here! New M1 mac minis supplied last summer w/ ExtremeMac USB-C peripherals, and they tend to just not wake up with the machine. Going from Monterey -> Ventura -> Sonoma hasn't changed the situation at all, so definitely pointing towards the peripherals. Luckily our staff & students have gotten used to this now and just replug them every time they wake the machines up, but less than ideal to say the least as we use the USB-A ports for music kit so we've got no choice.

[cnc]

Do we know if this is model specific on the peripheral side?

 

The new Xtreme Mac keyboards and mice we are having issues with are:

Keyboard: XWH-WIK2-83-UK

Mouse: XWH-WMO2-83

 

Was just wondering is this was ALL XtremeMac peripherals or certain models. We are testing with an older model of XtremeMac (USB-C) mouse and keyboard that we had from the older iMacs this morning.

No issues with the older peripherals on the iMacs.

 

Also, testing the new problematic models of peripherals on the iMacs to see if the issue transfers across.

[Danny11515]

Hi,

 

We have the same peripherals!

 

Keyboard: XWH-WIK2-83-UK

Mouse: XWH-WM02-83

[Danny11515]

Hi, Could you post the reference of what peripherals you have from ExtremeMac? because I have a feeling that you might have the same peripherals as us.

[ovenchips]

Our Keyboards are: XWH-WIK-83-UK

Mice: XWH-WMO-83

 

Looks like slightly older revisions, but still behaving the same.

Edited June 10, 2024 by ovenchips

[cnc]

Thanks, that’s disappointing. We have some older XtremeMac mice and keyboards used on an older iMac suite that was installed Summer 2023 (Keyboard: XWH-WIK-83-UK

Mouse: XWH-WMO-83).

 

We have swapped over the older models on to the Mac Mini’s this morning and vice versa…newer models onto older iMacs.

 

So, looks like that might not solve the issue and that it is related to all XtremeMac peripherals on Mac Mini’s (we didn’t see any issues with peripherals on iMacs).

[cnc]

So after a little troubleshooting and testing we have discovered that the issues seemed to be down to the version of macOS - we've upgraded the devices from a mix of 14.4 and 14.4.1, to 14.5, and the issue seems to have gone away. We are still monitoring, but so far so good.

 

Very strange as from testing, other USB-C and USB-A keyboard were fine on this version, it just seemed to be that specific model of XtremeMac peripherals in combination with those versions of macOS Sonoma.

Edited June 12, 2024 by cnc

[ovenchips]

Interesting - I might check that out on our next PD day and see if it makes a difference, impressive that the bug has managed to persist through 3 full versions until now.

[cnc]

Sadly, the keyboard and mouse issue has arisen again…it was OK for a full day yesterday.

 

We are now trying to swap out different models of USB-C keyboards to test with.

 

Will keep you posted…

[Danny11515]

Hi, I have been running through a test of having the keyboard and the midi keyboard connected to the USB ports of the mac mini and then having the mouse only connected through USB C. At the moment it seems to be working fine without any problems as I haven't had anyone come to me with complaints but will keep a close eye on the situation as it develops but this could be a fix.

[dhicks]

it is related to all XtremeMac peripherals on Mac Mini’s (we didn’t see any issues with peripherals on iMacs).

 

Curses - only just seen this thread, we ordered 21 new iMacs for a summer ICT Room refresh on Wednesday, complete with wired keyboard and mice and the XtremeMac USB-C Hub for iMAC M1. We'll have those up-to-date with MacOS, hopefully we won't see this same issue.

[Brimstone]

Curses - only just seen this thread, we ordered 21 new iMacs for a summer ICT Room refresh on Wednesday, complete with wired keyboard and mice and the XtremeMac USB-C Hub for iMAC M1. We'll have those up-to-date with MacOS, hopefully we won't see this same issue.

This issue appears not to affect iMacs, only the Mac Mini.

 

Apple SE's in the UK have been made aware of this issue.

[Danny11515]

Hi,

 

I have tested the USB ports for the keyboards and also tried using a usb hub for the keyboards and we have had no joy in rectifying the issue so I think we are stuck at the moment until there is another update that has been pushed out by apple to rectify this little issue.

[BrandonH]

I am an IT apprentice at our school we had a similar issue even updating the OS on our M2 mac minis we had to go down the wireless keyboard and mouse rout same type of keyboards and mice by the way we even bought USB adapters

[BrandonH]

I am an IT apprentice at our school we had a similar issue even updating the OS on our M2 mac minis we had to go down the wireless keyboard and mouse rout same type of keyboards and mice by the way we even bought USB adapters

[Danny11515]

That is quite brave going with Wireless keyboard and mice. I don't think I would ever really take the risk only because of how much wireless keyboards and mice cost for the replacement or repairs. I have also been doing some digging through our MDM Mosyle not sure if anyone else uses mosyle but there was a restriction that we had on for the iMacs previously which was to disable USB restricted mode which prevents prompts to users to allow the connection for USB connections to be used on the macs. I am going to disable this setting for now to see if this will make any change to the situation as I am suspicious once this has been approved on the mac hopefully this will remember the connection for next time or allow the mice and keyboard to be picked up when the user goes to use the hardware if that makes any sense. This was introduced on Ventura so from what I was seeing from another user apparently they were also experience problems from Ventura onwards so lets see if this is the setting that causes the problems.

[BrandonH]

luckily due to the issues our supplier replaced the wireless keyboard and mouse for free and thunderbolt charging cable one for both sets but it can charge both hopefully this finds you helpful but unfortunately its the route we had to go down luckily the kids haven't broken them but the music department has been looking after it really well

[DavonPotter]

Hey! That sounds super frustrating, especially with everything else you have to manage. I haven't personally used XtremeMac hardware, but it might be worth checking if there are any firmware updates available for the keyboards and mice. Also, see if using a powered USB hub helps stabilize the connection. Sometimes, USB devices can be finicky with power distribution. If the issue persists, it might be worth trying different brands or reaching out to Apple support directly. Good luck, and hang in there!

[cnc]

We have heard back from XtremeMac...and they are saying that issue is with the M2 chip and their hardware and that other manufacturers of keyboards and mice are having issues with M2 macs.

 

They say that they are working with Apple and the suggested solutions have been offered below:

 

"I am sorry to say we don’t have a solution that works for everyone but here are some suggestions

Connect the Xtreme product to USB-A ports

Connect the Xtreme products into a USB-A hub that is connected to the USB-C port on the Mac Mini

We are still working with Apple & hope they can help with a fix"

 

[JessLian]

Thanks for this, super helpful, I will avoid.

[dhallam]

We have just had the same reports from our New Mac Studio M1 Rooms. They have only just reported it but been happing for months supposedly. Have reached out to XtremeMac to see what can be done as we don't have the funds to replace all 40 keyboards and mice.

 

Will see what they come back with.

 

ours are the same model as above

Keyboards are XWH-WIK-83-UK

Mice are XWH-WM0-83

 

We only went with this brand as it was the one recommended by our 2 of our suppliers.

Typical

[dhicks]

hopefully we won't see this same issue.

 

We have a room of 21 new iMacs (M3 processors, I guess), with USB-C hubs that connect into both of the two USB-C ports at the back of the machine to provide USB-C and (a single) USB-A port at the front. That hub also provides a wired network port. It would seem that, on waking from sleep, the network port isn't coming back up - a reboot seems to fix the issue, but that's an extra step for users to have to do.

[dhicks]

It would seem that, on waking from sleep, the network port isn't coming back up

 

Ah - problem actually turned out to be users were reporting "WiFi not working" error message / icon appearing on screen at login. That is, indeed, correct, as the machines aren't joined to WiFi, they have a wired network connection. MacOS still shows a "WiFi not connected" icon on the login screen, though, which some users thought meant "no network". Network was actually fine.