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imac keyboard input stop only within an app

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013)

High Sierra 10.13.6


Starting a few days ago, I will be typing in some program (Notes; MS Word; Excel; MATLAB; Chrome; etc) and suddenly, mid-word, input stops. I can go to another app and it's working again. Restarting the app fixes the problem; or, with Chrome, I can create a new *window* (not tab) and it will be ok again.


It seems like it's happened for every app I type in (listed above), at least once.


It's continued since a system restart.


Could there be some other program that is interfering? Java crashing or something?


The problem is not the keyboard, I have tried others (bluetooth and USB) and all behave the same way. It is specific to apps. The keyboards work fine.


This imac is old, so old OS can't be updated anymore. But this problem is new.


Any ideas?


thanks

iMac 27″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jul 18, 2022 12:49 PM

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4 replies

Jul 20, 2022 10:38 AM in response to ogonocaius

Log into a new, basic, admin user account, Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac and see if the problem persists. This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide.


If the problem doesn't exist in the other user account and you're still unable to boot into Safe Mode from your account try the following; Boot into the Recovery volume (boot with the Command + R keys held down  - Intel Macs) or  (How to Boot an M1 Mac into Recovery Mode), select Disk Utiity and run First Aid on all available boot volumes. Then reboot normally and test.


Jul 18, 2022 1:38 PM in response to ogonocaius

Additional info:


Interesting behavior with Matlab: I can select a figure (a separate window from the main window with the editor and command line) and type on the keyboard, and - as it should - it goes to the command line and begins typing. But right away input is dead again - if I type very quickly I can get 3 characters out, it's like there's a time rather than a character limit. wtf is going on?


Other programs don't have this separable window structure so I can't do similar tests there...

imac keyboard input stop only within an app

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