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Strange Screen Lock Issue - Keyboard Repeating

M

mac-slap-happy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 25, 2007
96
1
I have a 2020 M1 Mac Mini running MacOS 11.1. Seems I've found a strange bug that occurs intermittently at the lock screen where the keyboard repeats randomly when typing the password. This never happens on a restart / boot login, it only happens after my screen locks overnight and I notice this first thing in the morning. It also does not do this every morning, sometimes the keyboard works just fine.

Symptoms:
Login comes up, you start typing password. Some keys repeat 4 or 5 times. Other keys only repeat once or twice. I can never manage to type my password successfully and end up having to hard restart the Mini. You can tell something super strange is going on, as the keyboard is very laggy, and sometimes the special character menu comes up like I'm holding a key down, but I'm not. I have verified this is not a keyboard issue - everything is perfectly fine after a reboot.

I'm using the official Apple bluetooth keyboard and Apple Magic mouse.

Tried:
I've tried turning off any software that interacts with the keyboard (BetterTouchTool, etc). No change.
I've tried adjusting key repeat / key delay settings multiple times. No change.
I've tried turning on the Guest user so I could at least login / logout to see if this resolves it. No change.

This morning I enabled the onscreen keyboard for the login screen, hoping that when this happens again I'll at least be able to input the password so I can do a clean reboot. Not sure if this will work or not but I don't like hard resetting this thing nearly every day.

I've found some posts online describing an issue similar to this, but they're all old posts and seems resetting SMC is always the default answer. As I have the M1, this isn't an option, so I'm just not sure where to go from here.
 
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It happened again this morning, and my theory with the onscreen keyboard doesn't work. It will appear on the login screen, but not the lock screen. :-(

Anyway, I hooked up the Apple keyboard with a cable, and was able to type my password to login. As soon as I unplugged the keyboard after logging in however, I was still unable to type due to the repeating keys. I had to reboot to get things back to normal. My assumption is this has something to do with bluetooth since the keyboard worked via USB.
 
It sounds like you are having Bluetooth disconnect problems. It has been a problem for many people (myself included) well before the M1 was released.

www.macrumors.com

Some Apple M1 Mac Owners Reporting Bluetooth Connectivity Issues

A number of M1 Mac owners are reporting problems with Bluetooth connectivity on the new machines, ranging from intermittent disconnects of wireless...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
 
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Yea, probably so - it's just so odd how it manifests and presents itself. Its not actually disconnecting, it is just causing severe keyboard lag and super odd repeating patterns. Like the spacebar will repeat 10 times every time you push it, and backspace will delete 10 times every time you push it. Then you hit another key, and it'll only repeat say 3 or 4 times, and so on. This will not stop and the keyboard is useless until I just reboot, and then everything is perfectly normal.

Another oddity is it only happens after locking the screen after sitting at night. It never happens with the multiple screen locks during the day. It seems like it needs to be locked for an extended period of time before this issue is triggered. I may have to just start shutting the Mini down every night before leaving my desk.
 
I have the same issue with my M1 mini. I'm on Big Sur 11.2 beta and the issue is still there.
It's very random like you say. There can be no issue for days and then all of a sudden it happens again.
I'm using the Apple magic keyboard and trackpad.
Hope they will fix this soon!
 
Have the same issue. When it happens to me, I get those bubbles either above or below the text (don't recall what they are called) with both english and non-english characters -- sort of like they are suggestions for characters to type. Resetting clears it. I thought it was my keyboard so I returned it today but the new keyboard (Apple Magic) does the same thing. Called tech support this afternoon and the lady stepped me through a reset of the SMC and NVRAM reset. But after checking, it appears that NEITHER (or at least, SMC) isn't even on the M1 Mac. I didn't say M1 but she said she knew I had a mini, so I just assumed she knew. Anyway, the reboot fixed it the last time, and since we rebooted twice, I'm afraid it was that which fixed it again. I'm sure now it was only a temporary fix.

Has anyone heard of any fix to this? Any way to make Apple aware of it?
 
Knock on wood, thus far I've not had this issue since update 11.2. I still can't say for sure it has been resolved as it is an intermittent issue, but the update may have possibly taken care of it.
 
Still after 11.2.1 update. Seems to happen after inactivity of 2-4 hours but, for whatever reason, not longer. In other words, I'll leave my machine for lunch and it will occur but if I leave it overnight, it won't. Weird.
 
Same here. The update seemed to take care of it for several days, but then it happened again. Oddly enough, short periods didn't seem to trigger it for me previously, and now like you, a lunch break is enough for it to happen again.

This has to be one of the most frustrating Apple bugs I've ever experienced.
 
Still here after 11.2.2 update. Plus, it happened after long (overnight) break. Calling Apple this week. They've got to fix this. Getting tired of rebooting.

I've attached a screen capture of the issue. What I typed was "This is what is happening. I have been typing the whole time."
 
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Same issue happens to me. Only a machine reboot fixes it. Thought it was Bluetooth incompatibility (I have an older 2014-ish Apple wireless keyboard) so thought I would buy a new one and the issue would go away, but based off what I’m reading here that won’t be the case. Very unfortunate.

has anyone found a fix?
 
Icabod Slipp said:
Still here after 11.2.2 update. Plus, it happened after long (overnight) break. Calling Apple this week. They've got to fix this. Getting tired of rebooting.

I've attached a screen capture of the issue. What I typed was "This is what is happening. I have been typing the whole time."
Click to expand...

This video captures it perfectly. That is exactly what I'm seeing on my side as well.

The only other bit of info I can offer is this seems to be much more random than I first thought. I've actually had this happen once right in the middle of my work day - no sleep or break needed. One minute I was typing along, and the next thing I knew this was happening. As usual, only a reboot fixed it.
 
This has been happening to me since I bought my M1 mini back in January too. At first I thought it was my old apple keyboard but my new one does it as well. Another work around is to simply attach a lightning cable from the Mac to the keyboard when the problem occurs... so you know... turn that fancy wireless keyboard into an old fashioned wired one. I got tired of rebooting all the time to fix the problem so now I have been just leaving it plugged in until a fix drops.
 
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Similar issue here. I use Macbook 13'' M1, running 11.2.3.
I didn't notice a problem while using a separate bluetooth keyboard and mouse with an external screen, but now that I'm not at home, using the laptop as 'supposed' to like a true lap... top, I use the trackpad and built-in keyboard.

What happenes many times now are suddenly repeated popping sounds indicating that I try to press a key or button somewhere (maybe another tabblad in a browser) or whatever that obviously is not allowed.

What also happens is that when I press backspace to delete something and another program is started instead.
Or, when I want to start Mail, I get the window with installed apps, from which I can select mail.app.

It seems to me these problems are related. Restart fixes the problem, but it may start again any time.
 
I'm having this same issue. I now have 11.3 and if anything, the problem is worse than when I first start using my Mini M1. Amazing that Apple hasn't fixed this issue in 3 major updates to Big Sur. Is this a hardware issue that can't be fixed? Will Apple replace or repair these faulty M1 Mac minis?

Only fix is a hard restart as I can't use the keyboard to login and there's no option to restart on the login screen!

Mac mini (M1, 2020) 16GB
Big Sur 11.3
Apple Wireless Keyboard (orig style Magic Keyboard)

Tomorrow I'm going to see if Apple can replace or repair the unit.
 
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I found a solution that seems to have fixed the problem. It's been a week now and I have had no problems. It was suggested on a thread in the Apple Support Forums to reset the Bluetooth Module. Hold down Shift and Option and then with the mouse click on the Bluetooth pull down menu in the menu bar. You will see "Reset Bluetooth Module" in the menu, click that and then OK on the pop up window, and finally restart. Search online for more detailed instruction but that is the gist of it.

The best I could go is 4 days before the keyboard problem came back (usually it was 1-2 days) so like I said... it appears to be fixed. I used to have the disconnecting/reconnecting problem with my mouse but that went away two updates ago. The keyboard problem has lingered far too long. It was said in one of the forums that after a system update that sometimes the Bluetooth Module might have to be reset due to unintended problems arising so this is something for us all to remember from here on out. Apparently, this is a procedure that has been known and executed for years but it is the first time I have come across it and I have been using Macs since 1999. Go figure... when you think you know a lot about something...
 
I hate posting this (because I'm deathly afraid that by doing so it will jinx me) but I did Vasteel's trick 2 or 3 days ago AFTER the update to 11.3.1 (I missed 11.3 for some reason). Either the update or the trick Vasteel described SEEMS to have worked. At least, so far. I'll check in and let you know, but I haven't had the issue since at least Tuesday (its now early Friday morning).
 
One week in after the changes and no issues. The update or the reset described did the trick.

Spoke too soon. Happened again. However, the BT reset worked without a reboot.
 
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Same here. My impression is that they play a dirty game: over, say, 100 users experiencing this issue, a % will attribute it to hardware; hence, they go and buy a new keyboard which, miraculously, works fine. Another bunch of use will go and lose time at the local store where, miraculously again, the problem will be solved. The rest will wait until the problem 'solves itself'. Result: their profit miraculously rise up. Not to mention that in Europe they skip fair taxation by attributing the bulk of revenues to their Irish branch. Now you see a reason for their miraculous performance in the last few years.
 
This issue has yet to be officially fixed, but I did hack around it with a tip from another MacRumors thread:

forums.macrumors.com

Anyone's Bluetooth keyboard lagging or repeating keys after waking from sleep?

I know there have been reported Bluetooth issue with M1 Macs, but I am curious if anyone has my particular problem. I have an M1 Mini. I have a (12 year?) old Apple Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad, and have noticed that about one time in 6 after waking from sleep, that the keyboard has...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

In a nutshell, I created a script to restart bluetooth services using 'blueutil' (available from brew). I automated this script to run daily every morning (using launchd) and I haven't had an issue since. The daily restart of bluetooth services seems to keep this bug at bay, and I'm now over 2 weeks of uptime without a system reboot. Previously I was lucky to make it more than a day before the keyboard started repeating forcing me to reboot.
 
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