Keyboard suddenly stopped working

[lukeyxu]

Noticed an issue, not sure if its regarding the Mac version updates. My keyboard will stop working, even laptop keyboard will stop work too. Only restart will solve this problem.

[fishcymbal]

I just noticed the same thing this morning. Trying to track it down. So many possibilities. Seems to be worse after invoking CAPS LOCK as meta key, regardless of secondary behavior.

Not sure if it is something with Karabiner-Elements, Keyboard Maestro, some other third party issue, etc. Just ran a bunch of updates yesterday but they were all MS Office related. Also ran some Onyx maintenance and things have been a bit wonky since then.

Tried removing and reinstalling Meta Key parameters from K-E, but still the same behavior. Reboot fixes temporarily, but behavior comes back after a few CAPS LOCK presses.

UPDATE: I just tried the actual 4 keys of the meta combo and they still work, so it seems like something in K-E isn't working right. e.g. SHIFT+CTRL+META+OPTION+"D" brings up my downloads folder like it should, whereas CAPS+"D" does not.

UPDATE 2: Found this here: "I use Karabiner-Elements for keyboard customization. Since Catalina, hitting capslock will randomly stop the keyboard from working until the OS is rebooted. My solution has been to remove my capslock key to avoid inadvertent presses."

EDIT 3: Also checked Apple Prefs on CAPS LOCK key. Settings weren't set to ignore, but fixing that made no difference.

[piotrszyma]

I have a similar issue and sometimes closing & reopening the lid helps.

[serverhiccups]

I’m currently having the same issue. For context, i use macOS 10.15.2 and Karabiner version 12.9.0. I have fn mapped to caps lock (for switching between Japanese keyboard layouts), so I press it fairly frequently. The keyboard doesn't stop working every time, which is a little odd. The only thing that I have found that fixes the issue is a restart.

If there's anything that I can do to help triage the source of this bug, then I'm willing to help.

[bbatsov]

I have the same problem myself. I've noticed a few related issues - https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements/issues/2035 and https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements/issues/2114 Guess I'll have to live without Karabiner for a while.

[chrisbellman]

+1. Closing the lid (and waiting for computer to go to sleep) and starting back up seems to help free up keyboard (but then remap is no longer active until restart). On Karabiner 12.9.0 & MacOS 10.15.4 (but it's been happening for a while). FYI I just have fn + option remapped (swapped). Would love to see this fixed.

[bbatsov]

Closing the lid (and waiting for computer to go to sleep) and starting back up seems to help free up keyboard (but then remap is no longer active until restart).

I can confirm this worked for me as well. Funny enough - so far the bug happens only with the laptop keyboard, but it hasn't happened with my external keyboard.

[mwkcoding]

How is the devs not looking into this?

[m4rkw]

Happening for me as well. Catalina 10.15.5 (public beta) and latest karabiner release on a 2020 Macbook Air.

[m4rkw]

@tekezo I'll give you $50 USD to fix this, it's disrupting my work frequently and I sometimes have to reboot the machine to recover. I have to use Citrix for work so have no choice but to use Karabiner to make using windows tolerable. Happy to help with whatever debug logs or testing you need.

[trbielec]

@tekezo this is a fatal issue, please respond

Karabiner is 100% unusable on Catalina with these Caps Lock lockups and Full Buffers on the current version. Users cannot resolve with killall processes or reverting to previous releases. Many users have been mentioning these fatal errors for months.

[fishcymbal]

Somehow I got lucky and the problem went away on my mac and I'm only posting here to give some hope to the rest who are still dealing with it.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure which did the trick exactly -- multiple reboots, an uninstall and reinstall of Karabiner, or removing and reinstalling the complex modifications files.

For that last part, here's what I did specifically: I hit the "remove" button to take away my existing, customized script and then hit the "add item" button to get a fresh set of scripts. (Note: this was after downloading a fresh copy of K-E.) I chose a couple other caps lock mods as alternatives, ultimately staying with the one closest to my original. The problem disappeared.

Maybe those of us having the issue were using old scripts/mods that contained elements that are now deprecated by the OS? I don't know, I'm not a developer. I've seen it happen in previous versions though. It might be worth a try for everyone else who's been having the problem.

[m4rkw]

For me it's random throughout the day. Some days it works without issues, other days 1-3 times a day it will stop working. If I unplug and replug my external keyboard it often fixes it, but not always. I noticed that when it crashes if I press capslock on the internal keyboard (just to see if keyboard input is responding there) the light stays on and then it's screwed and I have to reboot.

[m4rkw]

We should probably also bear in mind that the next major release of macOS isn't going to allow kernel extensions at all so karabiner may not even be viable then.

[markwillis]

I used Caps Lock (which I don't often use) and had this same issue.

After a load of messing around, I found this GH issue. A restart worked for me, but I agree that this a really bad workflow for me as I had to stop running a server in the middle of my work to solve this. Hopefully just an easy to fix edge case 🤷 🤞

[fflakito]

I have the same problem, I'm bringing one more cry to the pack ^^.

Setup: MacBook Pro 2013 with MacOS Catilina 10.15.5. Using a wireless PC (Logitech) keyboard.

Problem description: once in a while (everyday this I think...), both my keyboards (original laptop laptop + wireless keyboard) simply stop working. I haven't stopped closing the lid, but simply unplugging the dongle and plugging it back allows me to type... but I don't have the remapping, and restarting Karabiner doesn't seem to help.

It is also a serious bug for me.

[grebulon]

Got this problem too on a new MacBook Pro 2020 with Catalina 10.15.5 - after some time the keyboard (AND mouse) stop working. K-E version 12.10.0, LED manipulation off on all keyboards. I also have the CapsLock mapped (to switch between languages) although I didn't notice this issue is related to it. I'll remove the mapping and try again. Never had this before with the previous Mac. It's pretty bad because I've come to depend on K-E and I can't do without it.

[ajrt2118]

I'm going to +1 this as well. I have the Drevos Calibur and had no problem with Karabiner until I got a new Macbook and update to Catalina. I just updated to the latest release, 12.10.0, and it's still not recognizing my keyboard. This has been happening for a few weeks now. Is there a fix for this yet because all my mapped keys are gone and resetting them doesn't work. I'd rather not use the Window's keyboard shortcuts while working. :/

[HuirongWow]

I got the same problem , and restart is useless. On Catalina 10.15.5

[TediPapajorgji]

same problem for me on macbook pro 2018, catalina 10.15.4. Happens randomly when the caps lock key is pressed

[grebulon]

Could be a bug in Catalina

[narukami894]

hello, i updated to latest macOS (10.15.6) but still happened.

[heihachi316]

Hello,

I have the same trouble with Mac Pro Catalina version 10.15.6. Switched FN with command. Karabiner will fix it ?

[VladislavEkimtcov]

I would also like to add to the choir of voices experiencing this. 10.12.0 on a home computer works fine. 10.15.5 the keyboard dying really messes with my job

[anedumgottil]

Chiming in as well. Seeing the issue with Karabiner 10.12.0 and macOS 10.15.6

[grebulon]

Catalina 10.15.6 is better than the previous version, but there are still issues with USB devices, and a reboot is still needed several times a week.

[techsafe123]

experiencing the same problem. nothing to add.

[VladislavEkimtcov]

Okay, it managed to break in a new way today. Karabiner simply stopped interpreting key rebindings. I'll try to reboot to see of that helps. EDIT: this was resolved by a restart. The original issue is still intermittent.

[umurcg]

I have same problem with karabiner. It is a major bug occurs in mac os x catalina, and makes the software useless.

[EvansMatthew97]

I occasionally get this problem when pressing caps lock. Restarting is the only thing that fixes the issue. Touchbar and trackpad keep working fine, but the keyboard gets stuck with caps lock on (you can see the LED) and none of the keys work.

[Akhilkokani]

Even I am facing the same issue, to add context I am using MBP 2012 with MacOS Sierra 10.12.6, randomly left-shift key is not detected by K-E.

Restarting MBP solves it temporarily.

Note I have mapped all my not-working keys to eject button.

[kemalsanli]

I am also facing same issue on my hack. Version is : 10.15.6(19G2021).

[grebulon]

Guys, this doesn't seem to be a Karabiner bug - I suspect it's because of Apple's buggy USB driver. It was buggy since version 10.13 (or before) and it seems to go downhill. No point in reporting more of the same, at least until the next version.

[VladislavEkimtcov]

Guys, this doesn't seem to be a Karabiner bug - I suspect it's because of Apple's buggy USB driver. It was buggy since version 10.13 (or before) and it seems to go downhill. No point in reporting more of the same, at least until the next version.

Can this be fixed by transferring the driver from the previous build of macOS? ie that works for getting the "charge left" time back

Alternative fix: disabling karabiner's virtual keyboard and switching to a physical one?

[atanasj]

I am experiencing a similar issues... Left shift, control, and option key do not work. Got it to work by disabling caps lock and restarting. Worked for about 10 hours, then stopped again. Restart does not fix and this even interferes with an SRC reset as these keys are disabled. So now I'm stuck with no left shift, control, option. I've run built in diagnostics and no hardware issues are coming up (apart from the NVME drive I installed on this machine-Macbook Pro 13", late-2013).

Any ideas?? I've tried many of the proposed solutions across this repo and non work.

macos 10.15.6 and KE 12.10.0.

[stephenheron]

Ah thank goodness this is a known issue, it's been driving me crazy.

Are there any logs that we can pull that would be useful in debugging this issue?

[trungbui2000]

I can confirm that karabiner has been super buggy for me as well

[kanazaca]

Is there an estimation for this issue? It's really annoying the keyboard disconnecting randomly and i have to restart to make it work again.

[VladislavEkimtcov]

So far the solution that I found is to never ever use the CAPS LOCK key :)

[chrisbellman]

Does anyone know if this was fixed in v13 that was released yesterday? Hope so (and then we can close this issue)

[mredig]

Karabiner randomly stops working for me as well. Today I noticed it was EXACTLY when I hit caps lock, which correlates with earlier posts. the behavior was that the entire keyboard was non responsive until I force quit all karabiner executables at which point the keyboard worked again, just without the remapping.

Rebooting resolves the issue.

[tkambler]

I might have a fix for this (so far - so good). Try going into Karabiner Elements preferences. Click the Devices tab, and if there are any random entries for things like USB Receiver (Logitech), etc..., make sure they are un-checked. Post Catalina update, that was checked for me. I unchecked it, and so far the caps lock hanging issue has not repeated for me.

UPDATE: No. Boo.

[chrisbellman]

v13 seems to have partially fixed this issue, FYI. It still does happen sporadically, but the main difference is that if you QUIT Karabiner-Elements, the computer goes back to normal (no restart required!). So I think the underlying bug is still there but the switch to DriverKit made it recoverable without a restart, which certainly makes this bug less critical.

[chrisbellman]

13.1.0 claims to have fixed this! https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/docs/releasenotes/#karabiner-elements-1310

[Carsair]

But v13 is broken too https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements/issues/2456 And the solution there is to downgrade....

[howardsuuu]

Same issue here with Catalina 10.15.7, I set my F6 - F11 keys as media control but now they aren't working. Tried reboot OS and reinstalled Karabiner.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[GorvGoyl]

capslock key is still disabling the keyboard. macOS: Monterey 12.2.1

[mosheavni]

capslock key is still disabling the keyboard. macOS: Monterey 12.2.1

for me as well, for the last couple of days. 2 different macbook pro's are randomly loosing connection to the USB keyboard.

[paragbaxi]

same here, have to unplug and plug in usb keyboard, then it works

[axeltidemann]

Same issue on Monterey 12.6, Karabiner-elements 14.10.0. I noticed that the globe key sometimes resets in System Preferences, but resetting it to "Do Nothing" does not solve the issue.