Possible to force keyboard backlight on at bootup?

[fessen]

I have an older MacBook Pro. When booting into El Capitan, the keyboard backlight is off, so it's hard to read the keys in low-light settings, which wouldn't be a problem except that you need to be able to see the keys to enter a password and allow booting to continue. Once booting completes, the keyboard backlight turns on automatically when necessary.

Is there a way to force the keyboard backlight to be active for password entry by default?

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Do you have FileVault enabled?

 

[fessen]

Yes.

 

[Intell]

There may not be a way to have the keyboard backlight come on before the OS starts. In the EFI FileVault login screen, there's no OS to control the backlighting.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Yes, with FileVault the OS boots after entering your password, so the drivers are not loaded yet.

You need to turn FileVault of or live with it. There is no other solution.

 

[Max(IT)]

the only "solution" is to make the macbook to sleep instead of shut it down if not needed.
I would not ditch the security of FileVault over this issue