Hi Scott, Barry's explanation that you might have mouse keys turned on seems plausible. I tried an experiment where I connected an external keyboard to the USB port of my MacBook and pressed the ALT/Option key 5 times. That had the weird side effect of enabling mouse keys on my laptop keyboard, but still allowing me to type as usual through the attached external keyboard. I could disable mouse keys mode by pressing the ALT/Option key 5 times quickly on the external keyboard, or by pressing the option key on my MacBook keyboard 5 times quickly in succession. You could try going to System Preferences and checking the box for "Show Universal Access status in the menu bar" on any of the Universal Access menu tabs. Then you're always able to go to the status menu bar (with either Control-F8 or VO-M twice), right arrow to the Universal Access menu, and arrow down to read the status of Universal Access features or open the Universal Access Preferences from this menu. I know that you don't need this to tell you that VoiceOver is turned on, but if you've ever configured a Mac for a low- vision user or someone who needs to use sticky keys this menu is great to have enabled. Not only can you tell whether an accessibility feature is turned on, but you can easily get to the Universal Access menu to modify its settings from this menu.
If having mouse keys turned on is not the reason for your inability to use the regular keys on your MBP keyboard when logged into your account, then the most likely explanation is that one of the preference files under your individual user account is corrupted. That would explain why things work when you are in the test user account but not in your own account. I don't know which plist file is likely to be the culprit. You could try removing com.apple.systempreferences.plist under the Library/Preferences folder for your account. HTH Cheers, Esther Barry Hadder wrote: > > Sounds like you have mouse keys turned on. Try hitting the option > five times. You can also turn them off in universal access/mouse and > trackpad. > > Sorry if you've all ready tried this, but that's sure what it sounds > like so I decided to mention it in case you haven't. > > Scott Howell wrote: > >> >> All, I posted this to another list and must have stumped the >> geniuses. First let me explain my setup. I have one of the new >> MacBook Pro 15-inch models. I generally use an external keyboard >> since I don't always need my machine for portable purposes. The >> other >> day I tried using the MBP's keyboard and and realized that all of the >> letters, numbers, spacebar, and caps lock keys do not work. Now >> before you say hardware, it is not hardware related. I have a test >> account and 9 out of 10 times I can log into this account and >> everything works as expected. If I log into my own account first, >> then >> I can't use the MBP's keyboard to log into any other account. Now >> the >> weird part is the external keyboard works perfectly and is not >> affected by whatever the hell is going on. I tried an archive and >> install with no success, I have booted from another Leopard disk and >> it works fine, I even just did the upgrade to 10.5.8, and this had no >> affect on my issue. I believe there is some software that is causing >> the problem, but I have not located anything that has not already >> been >> there and this is a new issue. If anyone has any thoughts, it would >> be appreciated. I only installed an upgrade to Dragon Burn and a >> trial of Cocktail, which I removed, but do not believe this is the >> issue. I also did install a copy of ABBYY FineReader and I could >> certainly remove from my system, but again, I don't think this is the >> problem. There is something being loaded when I log into the system >> and seems to have an impact system-wide in that I have to login >> first. I could easily rebuild the system, but would prefer to avoid >> doing this if at all possible or I'm going to have to run out and >> find >> a firewire 800 drive. Migrating all of my data would be such a >> painful process since it would take quite a while. :) >> >> THanks, >> >>> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
