El Capitan problems with Apple Wireless Keyboard

Which version el cap are you using?

I see this a lot, too. You don't need to reboot. To work around the problem, recycle the power on your keyboard.

Hi comptonsw

Thank you for the idea to try. I assume you maen that when it happens just disconnect the batteries in the keyboard and when they are reconnected the computer should 'find' the keyboard again. I will certainly give that a go and in doing so it will free up the USB socket again used by the current keyboard. Assuming that does work it does not of course put right the root cause of the fault which I assume will, at some point, be addressed by a patch or update to the system.

Same issue here. iMac 5K (late 2014) with wireless keyboard. Same symptoms. Cycling power to the keyboard fixes the issue maybe 50% of the time, the rest, I have to power off then on the iMac in order to get bluetooth to connect the keyboard. Magic Mouse and trackpad don't appear involved. Running 10.11.2 beta 5. This has been an issue since I bought the iMac a few months ago. None of my other Macs exhibit this behaviour. Mac Book Pro running 10.11.2 beta 5 and Mac mini running 10.11.1 are without symptoms.

Almost seems to be an interference issue, but I have no way to prove or disprove that theory. I have swapped keyboards, turned the others off, nothing changes anything.

If I thought it was an issue with El Capitan, I'd file a bug report, but can't prove that either.

Ideas anyone?

Charles Johnson

All I do is power off and power back up the keyboard. You don't need to take the batteries out. The power button is at the upper right corner of the keyboard.

Interesting. I have the same configuration - iMac 5K late 2014 with wireless keyboard. I wonder if it's hardware related. But as I say, cycling power works fairly well. I also wonder if it's related to battery levels. I've found that rechargable batteries don't perform that well.

Since my last post the keyboard worked fine until last night when the problem returned. I carried out your procedure of disconnecting the batteries and reconnecting them and was successful at the next attempt. Thank you for that tip. I cannot put a finger on why it happened last night as nothing untoward happend - although I guess something did for the fault to occur, but what, a complete mystery!!!

I’m having the same issue with regularity myself, lately. Again, you don’t need to pull the batteries out. Just turn off the power by pressing the keyboard's power button for several seconds. Then power it back up and let the keyboard reconnect.

Here’s another option to try: If you have a wired mouse handy, disable bluetooth on the mac momentarily, and then re-enable it. Obviously you need wired accessories to try this test.

I've had this happen to both my iMac Late 2010 and my iMac Late 2013 using either the Apple Magic Keyboard 1 or 2. By turning off and the back on the keyboard I was able to get around the problem. This is actually a little easier using version 2 of the keyboard since it has an off/on switch I can toggle. This also started happening to me after I first upgraded to El Capitan back in 10.11.0 (beta 3). Has not been fixed as of yet. I will check the official 10.11.2 release now that it is out and report back.

iMac 2015 - 27" 5k. Wireless keyboard, mouse and trackpad all connected bia bluetooth.

I have the same issue with my wireless keyboard adding random keystrokes to the password box after the Mac has been asleep and also being erratic (basically unusable) on occassion during normal working. In another thread on this issue there was a recommendation to move trackpad off to one side. This seems to have helped some people. Not me. The problems started after upgrading to El Capitan.

Does anyone have a solution for this keyboard problem besides taking the batteries out and putting them back in again. That works for me but is inconvenient to say the least.By the way the on/off button top right does not have any effect on the problem when toggled 'on and off'.

I have to R & R batteries too when I get into this spot. Found this out when trying and failing to get wi-fi to work...someone suggested to create a wi-fi network on the computer, and when I did that, I lost both my BT mouse and keyboard. Had to jump thru several hoops before I got them back and never did get wi-fi to work. Also couldn't get my ipad to stay connected to my router...had to move it across the room. Never had any of this before el cap.

I just power cycle the keyboard. No need to remove the batteries. You need to hold the power off for a few seconds. Toggling isn't sufficient. That seems to work fine.

I wonder if this problem occurs with the new Magic lightning connector keyboard.

Thank you for the help with how to restart the keyboard. I have now found that the tip about moving the trackpad to one side has helped alleviate the problem. It took awhile but now for the last 2 days no more issues. I think it must be something to do with using all three: keyboard, mouse and trackpad on El Capitan.

Very interesting. What exactly do you mean about "moving the trackpad" to one side? Does it matter which direction, left or right? How far away? And yes, I use all three devices as well. Does everyone on this thread use all 3 devices? I'd be interested to see if the problem recurs for you -- it seems to happen with no particular pattern.

To the right about 20 cm. I used to put the trackpad under my screen. Looked neat sitting there on the metal. I also think it may be an issue affecting people with all three input devices connected at the same time.