Aral Balkan

After upgrading to Leopard, I've been experiencing random keyboard freezes and, apparently, I'm not alone.

One thing I've found is that repeatedly pressing Num Lock appears to bring it out of the freeze for me after pressing it about five or six times.

Of course, this is very annoying and I hope that Apple will address this problem ASAP (currently, they don't appear to acknowledge it as an issue and the latest system update (10.5.1) has not made a difference.) On the whole, I must say that I am not very happy with Leopard: It has definitely fallen short of the sort of stability and polish I had come to expect from OS X with Tiger.

Has anyone else with a MacBook or MacBook Pro experienced this?

Comments

• After "upgrading" to Leopard on my PowerBook G4 I have experienced freezing that was never an issue before. Anytime I leave the computer open in ANY application for more than a few minutes I get total freeze. The computer needs to be shut down manually, as the cursor is frozen and there is no response to the keyboard commands. NEVER happened on this machine before Leopard. The recent update did nothing to resolve this...HELP!

  by susan on 2007-11-26 19:13:06

• CANNOT understand why apple still has no response to this problem!!! It is very annoying and I'm going to use HP!!! Unbelievable, Steve Jobs!!!

  by Ruri on 2008-09-22 07:29:07

• Just got a MacBook 2.2 Ghz Late 07 model with 4G RAM running 10.5.1. The keys freeze 2-3 times a day. Multiple keystrokes or a restart corrects the problem. So far no answers or fixes from anyone.

  by BoxerLady on 2007-12-30 04:29:10

• Oh man. Its good to know I'm not alone or crazy. After Leopard I get freezes during operation and if I've let my screen saver run overnight I awaken to a frozen picture. I hate not being able to brag about my Mac OS to all my PC friends. I'm loving Coverflow, Time Machine, Spaces etc. but this freeze issue is really disruptive, and amateurish on Apple's part.

  by Campdon Gordell on 2007-12-15 04:18:34

• I upgraded my G5 dual 2.5. No problems with Leopard at all and it runs like a charm EXCEPT I had the Apple BT keyboard (white) and it would be slow to recognize keypresses and would get them out of order (ie, you start typing "Now is the time" and you might end up with "oNw is hte time" or whatever. I tested this repeatedly to make sure my fingers were not messing up... I bought a new Apple wired keyboard and the problem went away. And the BT keyboard works fine under Tiger (no problems before on G5 and now works fine on mini running Tiger). I do not know if the 10.5.1 update fixed it as I have not tried the BT keyboard since updating. But have had no freezes or crashes or anything, once I updated the firmware in my Sonnet SATA card.

  by Chad on 2007-11-30 09:34:02

• Ditto on the freezing with new MB Pro upgraded to Leopard -- which Apple conveniently didn't pre-install. Add to that failure to go to sleep and a rat-a-tat speaker sound obviously linked to the lockup. Applecare phone service -- 1/2 hr wait on two calls. Very very annoying. Having just switched from Vista hell, I am not impressed. Back to XP maybe.

  by jk on 2007-11-30 19:32:21

• yup. i'm having typing problems. they actually gave me a new hard drive b/c of this issue, and b/c it sounded like my "hard drive was working too hard." but now i'm wondering if i even needed the new drive as this is obviously a leopard issue. ironically, i figured it was a leopard issue. but the guy at the genius bar said "noooooo."

  by kate on 2007-12-16 15:13:14

• I experience frequent freezes with leopard 10.5.1 osx with my brandnew macbook 2ghz 2gb shiny book. it is really annoying!

  by jez on 2007-12-17 19:43:01

• I think one of the updates may have caused this. I have been using Leopard since the release and just encountered this issue several days ago. I want a $100 credit in the iStore!!! :)

  by Steve James on 2007-12-03 03:50:45

• OMFreakinG! Where were all of this complaints when I was deciding to buy a MacBook Pro?!! I just bought a brand new 17 inch MacBook Pro with ALL of the upgrades! Yes, I could have bought a use car to get get around town....but instead...I bought some frozen magic beans! My God, I've spent more hours on the phone with Apple tech support these past 5 days than I've spent with everyone that I know put together! Boy, talk about Windows deja vu! This is freaking ridiculous! I bought the MBP because I'm about to start Grad school in January. I can't take test on a computer that freezes every six minutes!!!!!!! I want my $4,000 back! It's useless and Apple is too slow about fixing the problem. Now, I can't even watch the Apple commercial with the PR lady. It's funny how the say that people are downgrading from Vista. This chick is ready to downgrade to Tiger!

  by Nneka P. on 2007-12-18 06:23:49

• [...] After upgrading to Leopard I’m experiencing random keyboard freezes in my MacBook Pro. It’s very annoying! After a quick Google I found many people having the same problem. [...]

  by Leopard Keyboard problems - Nirlog.com - Technology, Life and other stuff that come along… on 2007-12-04 22:20:00

• hi aral. your site is best on www. thanks

  by html kodları on 2008-07-18 19:19:12

• This is for sure an OS problem, I purchased a MiniMac in 05 and never experienced a problem until I recently upgraded to Leopard. Now at least once a week either the keyboard or mouse looses connection. Now on 10.5.2, lets hope for a fix.

  by Donald Marsh on 2008-03-19 14:54:41

• Yep. I have this problem too. My wife just got a MacBook Pro, brand new from the apple store, we have no software installed on it at all, except for the Sims2. The keyboard freezes while using TextEdit or Safari. Freezes for about a minute, and if she keeps hitting keys, eventually it will start working again. It does not 'cache' the keystrokes, or remember what was typed while it was 'frozen'. This is not an upgraded system, it came this way directly out of the box, and the darn thing doesnt work! This is bad. Whoever said this was a minor annoyance, and should be overlooked because OSX is still better than windows: um, dude... go buy yourself a PC and shut up. What makes apple better than windows is that they DONT do this kind of thing. This is totally unacceptable, and I'm considering returning the computer to apple. If anything, it should work when you unpack it. Maybe it's ok to crash when you download some cracked software on the internet... but it should work flawlessly the way it comes from the company store! Come on!!

  by Larsifer on 2008-03-05 17:25:41

• I'm pretty sure this happened to me when I got my macbook pro. This was one of the first lot of intel ones. It was a pain and I think one of the updates must have fixed it. I was using Tiger then. Using Leopard now and not had the problem. I'm sure i thought it was an overheating issue at the time; they get hot!

  by jason on 2007-11-22 11:45:32

• Also experiencing this on girlfriend's MacBook Black, we bought it the day Leopard shipped, so came with the update/upgrade DVD and Tiger pre-installed. It also drops WiFi continually. :/ I'm holding off upgrading on my MBP as a result of these problems.

  by Richard Leggett on 2007-11-22 11:53:46

• After Leopard's installation I started to use MBP's keyboard (i have used a wireless keyboard since then). EVERY SINGLE TIME i write something a character is missing and this is really "fun" when you write AS.. And dear Apple if you read this.. WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOU? The battery of my PowerBook can't stop charging, the machine randomly turns off the screen and i have to restart it... Ok that's a 4 years old machine. But a year ago i gave you 3.600 euros for a MBP, a month ago my superdrive could not read Leopard and now is dead(the SD)... Oh.. one more thing, dear Apple. My Cinema display made me believe in ghosts and this is scary for such an expensive toy.. That's it for now.. Sorry Aral.

  by savvas malamas on 2007-11-22 12:17:30

• Since my upgrade to leopard my bluetooth keyboard constantly looses connection, I don't know if this also has something to do with the built-in keyboard issues. Let's hope they fix it!

  by frederik jacques on 2007-11-22 12:28:55

• Bought a black MacBook earlier this year, and even though I'm still on Tiger the keyboard does freeze up at times; missing the first character of whatever sentence I'm attempting to write. Very annoying, especially as otherwise I'm happy with the machine. Am going to wait on Leopard therefore...

  by coderkind on 2007-11-22 14:12:58

• I'm experiencing this issue too, mainly while switching from some app to Adium. I first thought it was a mechanical problem with my keyboard and did not complain too much about it. I did not notice this problem elsewhere. Anyway, Leopard is not the brilliant OS I could have expected. Though I don't miss Tiger.

  by arnod'mental on 2007-11-22 15:12:18

• Forgot to say I'm using a C2D macbook pro

  by arnod'mental on 2007-11-22 15:13:00

• There have been plenty of very unhappy people at my place. Two people bricked their MBP's with the 10.4.11 update. Another's MBP's keyboard and trackpad suddenly stopped working. Not a good week for Apple :-|

  by Jolyon on 2007-11-22 18:16:53

• We just bought an iMac for the office, I've always been a pc guy but we needed one for the designer. In two days it's crashed about 3 times. I had less trouble with our new vista machine, and that's saying something!

  by Thom Shannon on 2007-11-22 20:04:11

• I'm glad I'm not the only one... I have also been experiencing this fairly frequently, and I still haven't moved up to Leopard! It's very frustrating. One thing I noticed is that it seems to happen after waking up my MacBook Pro from sleep. Sometimes it takes a good 2-3 minutes of pressing keys trying to get the keyboard to register! I have never had it momentarily freeze for a second during typing or anything like that though.

  by Jonathan Heaven on 2007-11-22 21:04:47

• I thought it might be related to firefox crashing or similar, but yeah I am experiencing the same thing on Leopard, generally unimpressed overall.

  by Natalie Downe on 2007-11-23 00:01:16

• Lots of issues on my MBP since upgrading - I won't go into the details but it's borderline unusable. My brand new iMac on the other hand was properly unusable - suffering from the 'popular' total freeze up http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1107864&tstart=0 I've since had a new iMac and Apple have finally released a fix for the video issue that caused it. I've wasted at least 2 days on this. Leopard seems totally rushed to me and appears far more unstable than Tiger. Not good.

  by Stefan on 2007-11-23 15:06:11

• I'm using Vista: sure there are some issues with some drivers and the GUI is although intuitive not attractive, but at least it runs like a charm on a decent cpu and never crashes ...

  by Gert on 2007-11-23 22:34:07

• for me it is quite funny.... what a bad reputation has microsoft, what a good reputation has apple ... now that advanced users are getting into the mac world we see things are not very different.... I am considering going back into Windows world. I see Apple products quickly degrading in quality, and focused to posh, non-complaining teens, and little by little, absolutely inoperative in a demanding professional environment. I drove a campaign on my company, making like 20 people to give a try to the MAcBookPro as the corporate laptop. We all are decepted. We all agree they beautiful, but, as we are not the typical iPhoto-iChat-iPod users with designer haircuts, we are concerned about other things such as stability. The new OS "Leopard" is really a mess. Basic things as the keyboard or mouse wok Maybe 5 years ago Mac products made a difference, but I feel that is gone now. I think they are too concentrated on the teen market and pogressively ignoring the professional sector. Ok.

  by robert on 2007-11-24 01:17:01

• my wife had the same problem on her macbook after the upgrade to leopard - it never had the problem before the upgrade _except_ firefox would sometimes lose the tab and return key input for some reason. After the upgrade and at seemingly random time the keyboad would just quit working altogether (mouse always worked) However, since 10.5.1 it hasn't had an unresponsive keyboard. My g4 powerbook didn't ever have the keyboard stop responding.

  by rob on 2007-11-24 00:37:01

• I just restarted my computer after completing the download, and now i have had no issues with my keyboard, so now i recommend checking the software updates to see what Apple has made... pretty fast service considering i noticed this issue about a week ago.

  by Preston on 2008-01-23 01:36:22

• Hi Robert, Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have a root canal without anesthetic than go back to using Windows -- my quality of life is so incomparably better on OS X. What we're complaining about is that Leopard does not live up to the very high level of polish that Tiger had. I don't think anyone is comparing it to the train-wreck that is Vista.

  by Aral on 2007-11-24 11:07:33

• I thought it might be related to firefox crashing or similar, but yeah I am experiencing the same thing on Leopard, generally unimpressed overall.

  by Rollo on 2007-11-24 12:49:10

• Oh, come on guys.. some perspective, what did you expect? Yes, I had one freeze, and occasionally Adium misses the first letter I type, yeah, it's annoying, and we always expect perfection from Apple, but these are relatively minor problems, and no doubts will be addressed shortly, the overall OS stability and experience is still great. Perhaps we got used to revolutionary steps, maybe after the iPhone interface "wow" we wanted something amazing in the OS too, well, Leopard is not a different world than Tiger, but more of a refinement. I noticed better memory handling, and the CPU is less active, as a foundation for future updates it seems promising. Beside, the new Finder is great, the simplicity in networking with others is unmatched in any OS today, and for it self is worth the upgrade for those who use a portable system. I simply don't understand what's the point in postponing the upgrade, just make sure to backup before :)

  by Adi Feiwel on 2007-11-24 19:11:54

• Hi Aral, I have experienced the same problem just after I installed the 10.5.1 update. So far nothing worked for me but to logout and log back into the system or do a total restart. The weird thing though is that it doesn't lock at a certain time, neither does it give any warning at all before freezing... A bit of googleing told me that more people where suffering from this strange event... I guess the only thing we can do at the moment is beg on our knees that apple will get a fix out like ehm... yesterday!!! :S because my keyboard locking up sux arse bigtime :( I had a few problems with the disappearing of my bluetooth too... its fine at the moment... but did you have any weird experiences with that so far? (I still love my mac though :P )

  by Mike van Kuik on 2007-11-25 00:33:11

• Hi Adi, Nope, having your keyboard freeze up randomly is definitely _not_ acceptable _or_ a minor thing at all for an operating system at version number 10.5.1. Can you imagine the ads if Microsoft decided to make some like Apple's? PC: "Mac, Mac? Are you there?" (After a long pause) Mac: Huh, oh, yeah, must be all that pot I smoke, I keep zoning out. Not good. And it gets worse (wait for my latest blog post for that one).

  by Aral on 2007-11-25 10:55:47

• I'm having the keyboard freeze problem also. I didn't have it before my upgrade to Leopard. It happens sporadically. It seems most often to occur when I've opened up my laptop from sleep. - Kevin

  by Kevin on 2007-11-25 14:08:10

• [...] that I had a hard disk in my MacBook Pro until I forced it to see it by saving the EULA on it) and how my keyboard randomly freezes (this happened to me about a dozen times yesterday while hacking out the countdown timer for Seb [...]

  by Leopard is tarnishing the reputation of OS X at Aral Balkan on 2007-11-25 14:11:42

• I have seen this problem twice on a brand new Macbook with Leopard installed. The only apps that have been installed are iWork and Firefox. The latest security updates have been applied. I can make the keyboard work again by suspending and resuming. Ben

  by Ben on 2007-12-25 20:50:18

• [...] been enjoying over a week of keyboard-freeze-free Leopard use until a few moments ago. Coincidentally, I also hadn't switched batteries in about [...]

  by Keyboard freezes in Leopard: possible link to changing batteries? at Aral Balkan on 2007-12-07 12:47:42

• Hello, i have MAcBook black about 1 year. And one monte before i install Leopard. I had no keyboard freez till yesterday, chmmm. One week ago i find this problem in MAC forums, and i think myself "what the heck"... Yesterday i reset printer port from system preferences. Today i got 2 times keyboard freeze... I will try to make "reset PRAM" if this will not helps, and freeze acures often, i'll back to Tiger instead.

  by 007 on 2007-12-08 11:27:35

• It's leopard, not your MBPro. I run a few older PPC macs including a 1.67 Ghz PB G4 and I get the same problem on all of them. I downgraded one back to Tiger and have had no problem with it since...

  by JAmes on 2008-01-22 16:46:14

• ...Published November 22nd, 2007 in Leopard, OS X After upgrading to Leopard, I've been experiencing random keyboard freezes and, apparently, I'm not alone. One thing I've found is that repeatedly pressing Num Lock appears to bring it out of the freeze for me after pressing it about five or six times.... Thanks a million! Same set up - same thing happened to me - your tip worked... It is a temporary fix - and my keyboard is still erratic as I type this mail - but it better than no typing at all...A step in the right direction.. JC

  by jconstant on 2007-12-08 21:40:31

• I have had this issue for a while, and couldn't find any answers, but today i had a breakthrough. I went to the apple menu (upper left hand corner) and clicked "Software Update." After my computer searched for updates there were a few i did not want, but one of them was a long name that began with Macbook Pro Update...something.... i cannot remember but browse through these options. The one i looked at specifically described my issue, and it said that the keyboard was turning off temporarily for, occasionally, even a minute. I was excited, and clicked that one to update. It is currently updating on my computer, and i will return with the results of my download, but check into this and it may solve your issues. P.S.- i am not sure if everybody in this blog is using a Macbook Pro, but i am and there may be other updates for those who aren't using one...

  by Preston on 2008-01-23 00:59:12

• [...] AppleMail y los jpgs. - El mayor evangelizador de Apple que yo me he encontrado. Preguntadle sobre el teclado que se bloquea o su experiencia con Leopard. - Y para el final un artículo devastador de PC Magazine: Leopard is [...]

  by Dando la chapa » Apple just works on 2007-12-09 23:15:27

• My keyboard seems to go out the longer I have been using my webmail, or on either browser (Mozilla or Safari). Hitting random keys will sometimes work, but what I notice most is that my screen flickers if it is going in and out of energy saver mode. This happens whether I am on battery or AC power. It is getting unusable for me as well. I have a MBP, upgraded to leopard and didn't have the problem with tiger.

  by Kandice on 2007-12-13 03:15:41

• I have a MBP, upgraded to Leopard. I have random freezes of my bluetooth (old clear/white style) Apple keyboard, but the keyboard will immediately start working again if I simply click on a different application and click back to the app I am working on. Usually, I am in Excel and the keyboard will quit. I can click on Entourage, then click back on Excel and the keyboard is fine. I guess I can say that at least I don't have to reboot. Any ideas out there as to why? Contrary to some who may say Vista is better--no way. I switched from Vista this year to Mac and am still very happy. Jamie

  by SlalomSkier on 2008-01-17 22:04:06

• My screen has been freezing up, particularly when I am downloading (I have a G5). I'm not happy with leopard so far. I'm also surprised by the overall theme change, I have always liked apple for it's crispness and simplicity, it seems the look it has now is a move away from that.

  by Val on 2008-02-17 07:20:56

• Yes, my brand new MacBook Pro with the Leopard on it freezes sometimes too...

  by Lifestyle on 2008-05-03 15:55:15

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  by Deakasterr on 2008-03-06 18:25:29

• thanks for post i was thinking in upgrading my mac .... thanks

  by jbr on 2008-07-17 13:29:07

• thanks. it is true

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  by gazeteler on 2008-07-24 22:28:23

• Upgraded RAM and to Leopard, I wished I had NEVER 'downgraded' to leopard. my Powerbook freezes frequently, bluetooth keyboard loses connection, it 'LOSES' my external drives and this is the most annoying thing I EVER experienced with mac.

  by LL on 2008-08-31 04:26:14

• Hi all, I have had a Mac Book Pro for a few months and have started to have the problems that you all are having. The space key freezes and there is no way I can get it to work, thus I am typing on my Mac Mini at the present. This is very frustrating. I bought the expensive Mac Book Pro, thinking it would be a reliable, dependable computer. All my computers have been Macs, but if this problem is not resolved expense free, I will be rethinking my next purchases.

  by Parula on 2008-07-15 23:38:40

• Same problem this morning after returning to work after the weekend. Trying the latest updates. Looks like Apple keeps screwing the pooch on this one.

  by Jacob on 2008-09-22 17:30:38

• MBP: Internal keyboard and trackpad lock-up... I just had another annoying problem with my MacBook Pro 4.1, running Mac OS X 10.5.6. I left the machine unattended for like 10 minutes or so, and when I came back the screensaver was active. Sliding a finger over the trackpad wouldn’t produce th...

  by Ralf's Blog on 2009-03-10 19:02:10

• Hi there fellas..... I've reed all your post and I got to say that I'm in the same situation as the most of you , but in addition to all this madness my hard drive just crash . It got completily screwed made a funny noise and after that: nothing. I bought a new one HD today , got to install everything from scratch..... Then it freezed again........ Kaput ..........!

  by Ernest Velez on 2009-08-05 04:18:35