1-9 numbers don't work

[macbiggeek]

Hey, everyone! The numbers 1-9 don't work on my Mac. I don't have a wireless keyboard. Very rarely they happen to work, but usually I am forced to use a keyboard on my screen. Has anybody had this problem? I have tried to restart my Mac, not helping..

 

[Slartibart]

Which keyboard? But “0” works? &,$, etc.? When you bring on the onscreen keyboard and type on the hardware one, are the corresponding keys highlighted?

 

[macbiggeek]

Built-in keyboard on my MacBook Air. "§±", "0", "-", "+, =" work, but other symbols which are placed on 1-9 don't work. Yes, when I type something but numbers on the built-in keyboard, the corresponding keys are highlighted on screen, but when I type numbers, nothing is highlighted

 

[Slartibart]

Please check your System Preference settings wether Mouse Keys are enabled:

1. Open System Preferences and click on the Universal Access preference pane.
2. Click the Mouse & Trackpad settings tab.
3. Click the "Off" radio button next to Mouse Keys.

nota bene: You may also check/uncheck the box for "Press Option key five times to turn Mouse Keys on or off".

 

[macbiggeek]

It works now! thank you very much!

 

[Vitor.Sousa]

Hello,
I have the same problem and I couldn't solve it, can anyone help me?

 

[Gregg2]

Do you have anything different happening than what is described above? Do you mean that you tried the Universal Access pane and it didn’t help? Any other details that you can provide might help someone to suggest something else to try.

 

[Vitor.Sousa]

No, it's the same problem, the numbers 1 to 9 stopped working, the 0 and the rest of the characters work, only the keys 1 to 9 don't work.
It's a Macbook Pro 13".
I've tried the solution above, but it didn't work, the keys still don't work.

 

[Slartibart]

Which version of MacOS? What happens if you press the Option-key five times?

 

[Vitor.Sousa]

I have macOS High Sierra, version 10.13.6
charge five times and nothing happens.

 

[Vitor.Sousa]

if you activate the mouse keys, the keys do not work:
U, I, O, J, K, L, M "," and "."

 

[chown33]

This sounds a lot like the OS has misidentified the keyboard, or that a file associated with the identification of the keyboard has been damaged.

On your Mac, bring up the Keyboard pane in System Preferences, and post a screenshot of it. If it offers a button to change the keyboard type, click it and follow any instructions.

Was there ever a Bluetooth keyboard connected to this Mac? That's one of the things I've seen that occasionally leads to broken keyboard identification.

Finally, look under Keyboard Shortcuts and make sure nothing has been assigned to the number keys 1-9.

 

[Vitor.Sousa]

This sounds a lot like the OS has misidentified the keyboard, or that a file associated with the identification of the keyboard has been damaged.- is there any way to fix it?

On your Mac, bring up the Keyboard pane in System Preferences, and post a screenshot of it. If it offers a button to change the keyboard type, click it and follow any instructions. - it has no button to change the keyboard.

Was there ever a Bluetooth keyboard connected to this Mac? That's one of the things I've seen that occasionally leads to broken keyboard identification. - I've never connected a Bluetooth keyboard

Finally, look under Keyboard Shortcuts and make sure nothing has been assigned to the number keys 1-9. - has nothing, just doesn't recognize the keys.

 

[DanielJWP]

Please check your System Preference settings wether Mouse Keys are enabled:

1. Open System Preferences and click on the Universal Access preference pane.
2. Click the Mouse & Trackpad settings tab.
3. Click the "Off" radio button next to Mouse Keys.

nota bene: You may also check/uncheck the box for "Press Option key five times to turn Mouse Keys on or off".

I tried but still there are moments when the keys don't work.

 

[DanielJWP]

Built-in keyboard on my MacBook Air. "§±", "0", "-", "+, =" work, but other symbols which are placed on 1-9 don't work. Yes, when I type something but numbers on the built-in keyboard, the corresponding keys are highlighted on screen, but when I type numbers, nothing is highlighted

It works now! thank you very much!

Have you encountered the issue again since then?

 

[bsimo]

Please check your System Preference settings wether Mouse Keys are enabled:

1. Open System Preferences and click on the Universal Access preference pane.
2. Click the Mouse & Trackpad settings tab.
3. Click the "Off" radio button next to Mouse Keys.

nota bene: You may also check/uncheck the box for "Press Option key five times to turn Mouse Keys on or off".

Hello,

None of the suggestions above works for my problem. Nothing is enabled -so I cannot turn them off-, no bluetooth keyboard, no shortcuts, and my numbers work very rarely.

The problem is exactly same as the first post below.

Hey, everyone! The numbers 1-9 don't work on my Mac. I don't have a wireless keyboard. Very rarely they happen to work, but usually I am forced to use a keyboard on my screen. Has anybody had this problem? I have tried to restart my Mac, not helping..

Is there anyone who can help me?

 

[Slartibart]

please open the onscreen keyboard and then use the physical keyboard of your Mac to type. Every key stroke should be shown on the onscreen keyboard. If you press 1 - 9 does the onscreen keyboard show that the physical keys were pressed?

If yes. Reset the NVRAM as well as the SMC - this procedure varies on the Mac model - which do you have? Which version of MacOS?

 

[bsimo]

please open the onscreen keyboard and then use the physical keyboard of your Mac to type. Every key stroke should be shown on the onscreen keyboard. If you press 1 - 9 does the onscreen keyboard show that the physical keys were pressed?

If yes. Reset the NVRAM as well as the SMC - this procedure varies on the Mac model - which do you have? Which version of MacOS?

Thanks for reply, but those two did not work either.
The problem is that my numbers work occasionally, and while they were in a mood to work, I can see my presses on onscreen keyboard.

It sometimes help to press the upper side of the keyboard physically, I mean, the space between fn keys and the screen. It sometimes also help to press the keys very hard, but I don't get a response every time.

I tried to check hardware problems, but that procedure requires to enter wifi password, which I cannot not because there are numbers in that password any my keys don't work.

 

[Slartibart]

I tried to check hardware problems, but that procedure requires to enter wifi password, which I cannot not because there are numbers in that password any my keys don't work.

you can use the onscreen keyboard. Which mac do you use?

 

[bsimo]

you can use the onscreen keyboard. Which mac do you use?

MacBook Air Early 2015. macOS Big Sur 11.6.5 (20G527).
I cannot because during that procedure the computer is off and I cannot open onscreen keyboard.

 

[Slartibart]

MacBook Air Early 2015. macOS Big Sur 11.6.5 (20G527).
I cannot because during that procedure the computer is off and I cannot open onscreen keyboard.

Ah, sorry - misunderstood - is there any problem to set a new WLan password without using the 1-9 keys and try then? Maybe by using the web interface of your Wifi router?

Your description might indicate that the battery is swelling up and that impacts the function of the keyboard. If the physical key strokes are not reliably registered, there is probably not really much you can do.

You can check wether the problem is restricted to your current user account by creating a new one and login as this user.

You can start your Mac in safe mode and check.

Last you can try to see wether issuing sudo tccutil reset Accessibility in the terminal improves the situation - but this is basically an add-on to my earlier comment to turn off Mouse Keys.

 

[bsimo]

Ah, sorry - misunderstood - is there any problem to set a new WLan password without using the 1-9 keys and try then? Maybe by using the web interface of your Wifi router?

Your description might indicate that the battery is swelling up and that impacts the function of the keyboard. If the physical key strokes are not reliably registered, there is probably not really much you can do.

You can check wether the problem is restricted to your current user account by creating a new one and login as this user.

You can start your Mac in safe mode and check.

Last you can try to see wether issuing sudo tccutil reset Accessibility in the terminal improves the situation - but this is basically an add-on to my earlier comment to turn off Mouse Keys.

Hi,

I managed to do that hardware test and it turned out there are no problems.
I hope that is not the battery thing, but I don't know why 1-9 only in that case, and all fn keys and "?-0 etc are working.
Right now my numbers are working, but I don't know if making that hardware test affected them or they are in a good mood to work for a while.

I will check the user thing after they are back to not working state (I hope it won't happen, its impossible for me to work while there are no numbers and symbols..) and come back. Thanks a lot by the way.

 

[DD88]

In this instance I advise you call apple care immediately or only use numbers 10 and upwards

 

[danakin03]

I have the exact same issue of BSIMO since 2 months ago. Very very annoying for work (sometimes, because sometimes it works). There is another thing that I found to solve the issue for a while, which is basically typing one of those one to nine numbers when changing the name of a file. I found it randomly last week but every time I was having not showing numbers, I would go to change the name of a file, type a number, and get the numbers back. Everyday until today.

Today my strange solution of typing a number in a file name file didn't work. So I was reading this forum to see if anybody else was having the issue. While reading the forum I saw the comment about the battery. I was at 40 per cent battery today so I thought, let s try if it gets better when I plug it. And yes, I have recovered the numbers after plugging it. So It may be related somehow. BUT, many times I have been working with the entire battery charged and the laptop plugged in, and still having one to nine not working. Moreover, I have already lost the numbers one to nine again while I was typing this, so I have no idea what is going on.

It is a MacBook Air from 2016; I wrote that with the accessibility keyboard of course.

I am starting to think that the laptop will be useless forever.

 

[danakin03]

I add to my previous post. I am doing trials plugging and unplugging the laptop and yes, that has something to do.
My trial:
- the numbers don't work no matter what I try and the laptop is plugged
- I unplug it and suddenly some of the numbers work for few seconds. They stop working again.
- I plug it and some numbers that weren't working, now they work, for few seconds as well.

I don't know why...typically what happens is that after some hour or days not working, the numbers just work perfect during some hour or days... so this is kind of new as well. But it definitely seems that plugging and unplugging it does something to the numbers 1 to 9.