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Keyboard layout reverts itself to US English.

Thrash911

Thrash911

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 14, 2006
297
4
Jutland, Denmark
Hey fellow Macsters,

I have a late-2012 27" iMac running the latest macOS (10.13.4). I have been having this annoying problem for 3-5 months, I'm not too sure how long. I only want a Danish keyboard layout, because then I can write both English and Danish. But once in a while, it changes the keyboard layout to US English, by itself. And not only that, it also removes Danish from the list. WTH..?! Like it decides what I need and don't need. It almost feels provocative.. It can happen multiple times a day, or there can be days in between. The longest I've experienced is about a week.

I have tried having both US English and Danish in the list, and I have tried removing US English and only have Danish. The result is always the same, it ends up only being US English. I have tried removing a ton of apps. But of course I have more I can remove, but the process is tedious and annoying. My dad has a newer iMac (21.5") but the same OS, and he does not have this problem (thankfully, lol). So there must be some app that is doing this.

What else could it be? I'm not sure what to do, other than keep removing apps.. Is there some system log I can snoop in? In that case, which log, and what do I look for specifically?

Any help is appreciated, because this issue is driving me nuts. ;)

--

EDIT, October 21:
You're welcome to join me in my long journey, but if you just want my solution it's this:

The problem was the modifier key for the Zoom function. I set it to '^ Control' and the problem went away. Permanently, this time. :) The setting is in 'System Preferences' -> 'Accessibility' -> 'Zoom' -> 'Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom'.
 
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prisstratton said:
If things are still not working for you after the SMC/NVRAM reset then please look at the solution proposed in the link further down that page, more specifically, here:

https://superuser.com/questions/991...ng-input-method-keyboard-layout-automatically
Click to expand...

Gravydog316 said:
another solution I saw:
https://superuser.com/questions/991...ng-input-method-keyboard-layout-automatically
Click to expand...
Thank you guys/gals! :) I admit I had high hopes for the NVRAM reset (yes, I realize now the newer machines does not have PRAM). But it decided I needed US layout once again. Wonderful...

The solution for the custom keyboard problem you both suggested me above, sadly does not apply to my problem, since no custom layouts are involved. Though, I did go through it anyway. There were no files in the "Keyboard Layouts" folder, in neither the user Library nor the system Library. Also checked for hidden files there.

I saw it was also mentioned, that you could disable the keyboard shortcut for changing layouts, since it's close to the Spotlight shortcut. I disabled that shortcut a few months ago, actually. But I checked it again anyway, and it's still disabled.

So..

What I did now, was remove my Boot Camp Windows partition (never used it anyway..), since I know that the selected boot volume is also stored in the NVRAM. I thought maybe that could screw NVRAM up somehow, even though it shouldn't. What do I know.. After that, I reset NVRAM once again. Now awaiting results..

Again, thank you for trying to help me!! ;);)
 
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Okay, keeping you updated..

Removing Boot Camp partition and resetting NVRAM, did not help. It went back to US again. So it's pretty clear, that NVRAM reset does not help my particular problem, unfortunately. But I'm not giving up, so I went ahead and tried new things:
  • I had the system language set to Danish, because I had to guide my dad over the phone at some point. I changed this back to English, as I like that better.
  • Ran First Aid on the boot drive in Disk Utility. It appeared fine.
  • Scanned system with Bitdefender Virus Scanner. Nothing.
  • Scanned system with Bitdefender Adware Removal. Nothing.
..and then I ran Onyx, and did the following:
  • Ran all system maintenance scripts. Daily, weekly and monthly.
  • Checked disk structure (same as First Aid in Disk Utility?). All good.
  • Rebuilt the following: dyld's shared cache, XPC cache, CoreDuet database and Mac Help.
  • Cleaned the following system caches: boot, kernel and extensions, international preferences, CUPS jobs, Other system components, Obsolete items, DNS, Browser, Download, System fonts, Users fonts, Apple applications fonts, Adobe Systems fonts and open source apps fonts.
  • Cleaned the following user caches: Applications, Audio Units and QuickLook.
  • Other stuff cleaned: Mail Downloads folder, Saved Searches folder and Recent items.
Since all this, I have had several reboots and one power cycle (all voluntarily, I should add ;)), and the layout setting has stuck so far. So I'm a tad hopeful. Hoping for the best, expecting the worst. :rolleyes: I will still report back.
 
Aaaaand back to US again. I'm very disappointed and frustrated.. :( I don't see a pattern here!!! It's tempting to just give up and live with it. But part of me refuses, since the problem is so ridiculous!! Maybe this is "just" one of those annoying things that can happen in High Sierra?

Well, no harm in asking again. Does anyone have any other ideas I can try, besides uninstalling apps (which I will probably end up doing)?
 
After pondering my next move for a while, I decided to reinstall the OS from the latest Time Machine backup. That completed a few hours ago. Maybe that could weed out some irregularities..? Time will tell..
 
Did you try making a new user account and working out of there exclusively for a while? You probably did but I missed it somehow.

If you have the time, I would consider wiping the drive & doing a clean install. Add only one App at a time and test thoroughly before moving to the next. In this way, hopefully you will locate & eliminate the problem. Don’t give up, I need closure to this soap opera. ;)
 
Have you tried a different 'English' setting. Australian (& NZ) use the normal US keyboard, dollars etc. Might not be so quick to go back to the US default.
 
crjackson2134 said:
Did you try making a new user account and working out of there exclusively for a while? You probably did but I missed it somehow.
Click to expand...
No, I did not, thanks! Thought of clean install, but not new user.. So I tried that. But it did not take long for the problem to show up there either.

crjackson2134 said:
If you have the time, I would consider wiping the drive & doing a clean install. Add only one App at a time and test thoroughly before moving to the next. In this way, hopefully you will locate & eliminate the problem. Don’t give up, I need closure to this soap opera. ;)
Click to expand...
Haha, you and me both!!!! :) Believe me, I thought about a total clean install. I'm just not looking forward to all the work and "habit interferences".. Plus, I'm worried that it will not help, because.. Then what??! But it must work. I think I'll have to go down this road.. Or.. Wait for 10.13.5? I dunno..

Ashka said:
Have you tried a different 'English' setting. Australian (& NZ) use the normal US keyboard, dollars etc. Might not be so quick to go back to the US default.
Click to expand...
Thank you, but I'm not sure I understand why. I'm trying to avoid anything other than Danish. The keyboard layout list should always and only show Danish. It's simple, but it seems this confuses the OS, lol.. But hey, sure. I will try and put different English layouts in the list, alongside Danish. I'm willing to try anything! ;) Thanks.

--

Okay, update time..
  • So, the reinstall from TM backup did not change anything. Same problem still.
  • I then tried creating and using a new account (see 'crjackson2134' quote above), but the problem was there as well.
  • For a long time, I have had a completely clean desktop (no icons), because I was tired of the icon mess I had.. I went back to the normal desktop (and cleaned it up, lol). Thought maybe that innocent "hack" disturbed something. But no, same problem.
  • I then tried removing some more apps and preference panes: TunesArt, Avast Antivirus, Xbox 360 controller driver, FUSE (NTFS write tool) and SwitchResX. No change.
  • I tried Apples Hardware Test (holding D at boot). Both short and extended tests showed no problems.
  • Then I tried a workaround.. I used the app Ukelele to create a "custom" danish keyboard layout. It's the exact same layout as normal Danish, but wanted to see if a custom layout would work better. I put it in the /Library/Keyboard Layouts (system. not user.). Worked fine at first, but it did not stick. It seems my OS is allergic to anything other than US..
So now I will try what 'Ashka' suggested above. If that fails, I guess I'll have to do a completely fresh install. Wish me luck. I'll be back sometime. ;)

EDIT: So in my layout list I put Danish, Australian, British and Canadian. Danish was active, of course. It stuck to Danish during 3 logout/logins and 2 reboots. At third reboot, it had wiped the whole list and put in U.S., as per usual. I'll take some time off now, and see if I can think of anything other than a complete reinstall. I'll be back.

EDIT2: Just tried something for the heck of it.. At a reboot, it changed to US, as it so often does. Without doing ANYTHING else at all, I immediately rebooted again. When back in the OS again, it was Danish!! What. The. Hell. o_O Plot thickens..
 
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Time for an update. There are some good news this time. In this episode..: :D

I have the Logitech MX Master mouse, which is connected via the Logitech Unifying dongle. I thought maybe that could disturb something, since that dongle also supports keyboards. So..

On May 30th, I removed the dongle and replaced the mouse with an older USB mouse. I cleared out the usual stuff with Onyx (see earlier post) and did a NVRAM reset. Later the same day, it went back to U.S. again. F**k..

On June 1st, I removed NVIDIA web driver (pretty sure that's not it, though, since I installed it while I had this keyboard problem). I also completely uninstalled Steermouse. I love Steermouse and am somewhat dependent on it, so that sucks a bit.. I also removed something called 'com.bresink.system.securityagent3a', which started in '/Library/LaunchDeamons' and was located at '/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools'. I think it came from an app called 'NFS Manager' which was removed a long time ago.

It is now June 19th, and I have had no problems since my June 1st actions!! Could Steermouse have been the culprit? I'm allowing myself to be hopeful this time. I'll give it a few more weeks, before I begin to trust it..

EDIT: It should be noted, that I didn't use the computer at all from June 2nd to June 9th (vacation). But still, I think it's holding up nicely.
 
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It's been 4 months now, and I have had no troubles in that time (almost. see below.). It's time I finished this. If you're the TL;DR type, the solution is below in bold. ;)

(I stopped taking detailed notes, so I'm writing this from memory)

Like I mentioned in my last post above, I removed SteerMouse. That stopped the problem. But SteerMouse itself was NOT the problem. I had a ton of keyboard shortcuts assigned to a lot of buttons on the mouse, and one of those was the problem. To be more precise, the shortcut to Zoom.

After I uninstalled SteerMouse, the problem went away. Until.. One day I needed to use the Zoom feature. I used to have this function assigned to the side-scrollwheel on the mouse. But I removed SteerMouse, so I did it "manually" by holding the modifier key (I think it was 'cmd' - default?), and using the wheel on the mouse. After that, the problem came back - it changed keyboard layout to U.S. after reboot. I rarely change default stuff, but this time I did. I changed the modifier key for the Zoom function to the 'ctrl' key instead. I used the Zoom feature with the new 'ctrl' key many times after that, and no problems arose. Some time after that, I even re-installed SteerMouse, and reassigned the Zoom function the the side-scrollwheel. Used it for a month or two. Nothing. No problems at all.

So, as I see it, the problem was the modifier key for the Zoom function. I set it to '^ Control' and the problem went away. Permanently, this time. :) The setting is in 'System Preferences' -> 'Accessibility' -> 'Zoom' -> 'Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom'.

I'm not sure if my problem is unique, but the solution is there if someone should ever find themselves in this situation. I've also added my solution to the top post.

Thrash911 out. Thanks for tuning in. :D
 
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