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dlindsay17 · Jun 10, 2003, 01:26 AM

I noticed that sometimes when I'm typing that a letter gets repeated even though I didn't hold the key down long enough for it to start repeating. It's pretty random about when it happens, but every now and then I'll press h and end up with "hh" or press g and end up with "gg" -- you get the idea. This happens with other keys as well and seems to be system-wide, not just confined to a certain program like MS Word. It doesn't happen too often, but it's still a bit odd. Any ideas?

The Placid Casual · Jun 10, 2003, 01:31 AM

I get the same issue on my 12" PB, most predominantly with the 'a' key.

Try playing about with the 'keyboard' preferences (keystroke repeat rate et al) until you find some settings you can get in with... Improved things for me (well alittle).

Peace,

Marc

Mastrap · Jun 10, 2003, 01:51 AM

The amount of times I've written 'bee' instead if 'be'. And, of course, no spellchecker will flag it...

dlindsay17 · Jun 11, 2003, 01:13 AM

Originally posted by Mastrap:
The amount of times I've written 'bee' instead if 'be'. And, of course, no spellchecker will flag it...

So it's probably safe to assume that others are having this problem and there isn't a hardware fix for it. OK. Just wanted to make sure this was a "ffeature" on the laptops and not a flaw. I guess it'll help me spell 'too' more effeciently.

dvdnet · Jun 13, 2003, 11:03 AM

Ahh yes, been happening on my Powerbook 17" aswell. Thought it was a bug for a moment, now it's just an annoying feature, especially when programming requires variables to be 'exact match'.

Debug these days involves checking spelling first and then logic. Ok, so it's starting to get annoying. Will have it in the shop on monday for the apple techs to look at it as others in my company don't have that problem and there's another 20 units that I have access to.

Cheers,
Steve

dlindsay17 · Jun 13, 2003, 11:28 AM

Originally posted by dvdnet:
Ahh yes, been happening on my Powerbook 17" aswell. Thought it was a bug for a moment, now it's just an annoying feature, especially when programming requires variables to be 'exact match'.

Debug these days involves checking spelling first and then logic. Ok, so it's starting to get annoying. Will have it in the shop on monday for the apple techs to look at it as others in my company don't have that problem and there's another 20 units that I have access to.

Cheers,
Steve

If you're taking it in through Applecare, let us know how it goes - and if they fix it. I might do the same if you're successful

dvdnet · Jun 26, 2003, 02:45 AM

Ok, just took my PB17 to my apple store today as they rang and said that the replacement keyboard had just arrived. I went in and they replaced it in front of me while I waited. Took all of 20 minutes.

Fired it up, workked finee. Came back to the office and fired it up here and guess what, repeated keystrokes appearing again as you can already see.

So I don't think it's a keyboard issue at this point. Have contacted the store again and will see what happens from here.

Note: just typed this as normal without going back to correct spelling, just to show how (in)frequent this issue is but how annoying it can get being a programmer.

Cheers,
Steve

GENERAL_SMILEY · Jun 26, 2003, 06:44 AM

I thought it was just me - have you tried messing in the keyboard settings, there are two sliders which may deal with your issues.

dvdnet · Jun 26, 2003, 08:07 AM

General,
been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Dropped the sliders ALL the way down so it is as slow as slow and still does it.

Now, I did receive a response from the Apple store and here is what they had to say:

You may have a corrupt users folder. First I would try and make a new users
folder - sys prefs - accounts - new user....

If that doesn't fix the problem, it may be a corrupt system. From there I
would boot off your installer disk and re-install 0S X.2 - Install...

Can someone please explain to me if this is physically a possibility as I've done what they've said and still the same.

On top of all this, the new keyboard I now has has problems with the backlight. Most of the top 2 rows does not light up and a few scattered keys in the bottomm 2 rows.

Cheers,
Steve

dlindsay17 · Jun 26, 2003, 12:18 PM

Originally posted by dvdnet:
General,
been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Dropped the sliders ALL the way down so it is as slow as slow and still does it.

Now, I did receive a response from the Apple store and here is what they had to say:

Can someone please explain to me if this is physically a possibility as I've done what they've said and still the same.

On top of all this, the new keyboard I now has has problems with the backlight. Most of the top 2 rows does not light up and a few scattered keys in the bottomm 2 rows.

Cheers,
Steve

I don't see how it could be a software issue, it sounds to me like its a circuitry thing. Then again, I'm no Apple engineer, so I'm just speculating. I haven't made any attempts to get mine fixed yet. Perhaps when I take it in to get one of the broken hook/latches replaced I'll ask them.

djjava · Jun 26, 2003, 12:46 PM

lead fingers....

dvdnet · Jun 27, 2003, 10:35 AM

Originally posted by dlindsay17:
I noticed that sometimes when I'm typing that a letter gets repeated even though I didn't hold the key down long enough for it to start repeating. It's pretty random about when it happens, but every now and then I'll press h and end up with "hh" or press g and end up with "gg" -- you get the idea. This happens with other keys as well and seems to be system-wide, not just confined to a certain program like MS Word. It doesn't happen too often, but it's still a bit odd. Any ideas?

dlindsay,
can u check something for me. Does this occur while you are connected to mains power, via battery or both. I just realised I don't get any issues while running off the battery power, or not as frequent?

Steve

opsotta · Jun 30, 2003, 06:19 AM

The problem doesn't have anything to do with power or OS installation! It already occured a few years back with AppleWorks when it was new on OS X. That was very bad and they've fixed it.

Now it happens because of a *bug* in OS 10.2.5 and 10.2.6. I'm using an iMac DV+ 450, by the way. I have set my keyboard repeat rate to the maximum and the delay to the minimum. And this is still not fast enough for me. However, I hope Apple will fix this and not expect us to pay for Panther.

By the way, did anyone report that bug to Apple? I haven't yet!

dlindsay17 · Jul 8, 2003, 01:14 AM

Originally posted by dvdnet:
dlindsay,
can u check something for me. Does this occur while you are connected to mains power, via battery or both. I just realised I don't get any issues while running off the battery power, or not as frequent?

Steve

Steve, you might be on to something. I've been running off battery all day and haven't had a problem that I've been able to identify as the kryboard's fault. It has repeated 1 or 2 times, but I wasn't sure if that was due to my typing or a manfunction. It definately happened more with the power adapter. Does this make any sense to anyone? I haven't reported anything to apple. Not exactly sure where to send stuff to.

icruise · Jul 8, 2003, 01:50 AM

I've had this occasionally myself. I don't know what the cause is, and it's not like it's so frequent to be really annoying, but still noticable.

DekuDekuplex · Jul 8, 2003, 05:43 PM

Originally posted by dlindsay17:
Steve, you might be on to something. I've been running off battery all day and haven't had a problem that I've been able to identify as the kryboard's fault. It has repeated 1 or 2 times, but I wasn't sure if that was due to my typing or a manfunction. It definately happened more with the power adapter. Does this make any sense to anyone? I haven't reported anything to apple. Not exactly sure where to send stuff to.

Strange ... when I use my 17-inch PowerBook, I usually run it off the power adapter, connected to a Belkin - 10-Outlet Surge Strip, and have not had this problem yet.

I have also run it off the battery, and not had this problem then, either.

I purchased my PowerBook in late March; it arrived in early April.

I have not yet installed the MacOS X 10.2 Jaguar OS updates.

DekuDekuplex

pZsolt · Jul 10, 2003, 08:13 AM

Guys,

Sorry, was not looking for this topic. Just posted a new thread today. Have a brand new eMac (I know, but for Java development and teaching my 8 years old to UNIX and computing is perfect) which gives the same problem. Swithed the delay to rate to slow, the wait to off. The Mail.app keeps repeat letters, never checked the pattern, but I beleive in random order. While the TextEdit seems working fine. Even on the System Pref/Keyboard pane, I can test, and works fine. Donno what is the solution. I will try with another keyboard over the weekend. Let you know what happened

Sophus · Jul 10, 2003, 04:43 PM

I have this problem on my Cube with an apple pro keyboard. I believe it must be a ssoftware bug and not hardware, considering the number of different machines this error occurs on. I have wasted ann immense amount of time deleting extra letters that show up because of this error.

Writing the manuscript for a book in OfficeX was a tremendous chore due to this bug. As some of you have noted, the error seems not to appear in Textedit. It appears frequently in mail.app and in several other applications. Adjusting the delay etc. in the control panel does not help at all.

I won't bother deleting the extra "s" in the word software above. I pressed the key once, and the machine spits out a double "s". Likewise with "an" becoming "ann".

God, I'm so annoyed over this. For a long time I thought it was just me, though this never occurs on the PCs I also work on. Hope it will get fixed REAL SOON!!!

Sophus

Sophus · Oct 17, 2004, 08:48 AM

I bring back to liife thhis old threadd.

I have a brannd nnew 15" Powerbook, and it has the problem (10.3.5), Alsom my iBook annd my Cube still suffers frrom this extremeely annnoyingg bbugg. I have to finish a report by tomoorrow, and it iis almost immpossibblle to do, givenn alll the errors that pops up from normall typing. It is not my typing, because I neveer hhave this problemm oon any of my PCs. The Macs are unusabblle with this bug. I am losing my minnd ovver this!!!

Have any oof you found a fix? At macfixit, some ssugggesteedd thhat it mmay be due to a corruppt postscript fonnt, but I don't know.

PLEASE HELP!!!! PLEASE...

NB: all the typos above is due to this bug, and comes from a normal typing. Playing with the delay and repeat rate for the keyboard does not help. I guess it has something to do with my prefs, or install, or some software culprit, since all my machines have the same programs installed. None of the machines are cloned, but my new Powerbook was set up with the "set up assistant", importing everything from my iBook. The bug thus seems to be inherited. It is system wide. Opening a new user account does not help.
Running on battery does not hep either.

Sophus..

gperks · Oct 17, 2004, 09:21 AM

My Mum has this problem with her new eMac on 10.3.4. It happens on the keys on the left side of the keyboard, a, e, s, d, 2, r, and others around that region. The rest of the keys are fine.

I told her to call for a replacement keyboard but it sounds from this thread like that might not help.

My 15" PB doesn't exhibit the problem.

dlindsay17 · Oct 17, 2004, 01:24 PM

Dude, if all those repeats are genuine then it is worse than it ever was for me. Mine would only stutter randomly and hardly ever in the same 'paragraph' or page, but just often enough such that I'd notice it (if that makes sense). I think my keyboard glitches went away for the most part and I'd completely forgotten about it until this thread popped up again. Sounds like a call to Apple would be in order if it is that serious, especially if you can reproduce the effects to a Genius or something. Sorry to hear it man!

Originally posted by Sophus:
I bring back to liife thhis old threadd.

I have a brannd nnew 15" Powerbook, and it has the problem (10.3.5), Alsom my iBook annd my Cube still suffers frrom this extremeely annnoyingg bbugg. I have to finish a report by tomoorrow, and it iis almost immpossibblle to do, givenn alll the errors that pops up from normall typing. It is not my typing, because I neveer hhave this problemm oon any of my PCs. The Macs are unusabblle with this bug. I am losing my minnd ovver this!!!

Have any oof you found a fix? At macfixit, some ssugggesteedd thhat it mmay be due to a corruppt postscript fonnt, but I don't know.

PLEASE HELP!!!! PLEASE...

NB: all the typos above is due to this bug, and comes from a normal typing. Playing with the delay and repeat rate for the keyboard does not help. I guess it has something to do with my prefs, or install, or some software culprit, since all my machines have the same programs installed. None of the machines are cloned, but my new Powerbook was set up with the "set up assistant", importing everything from my iBook. The bug thus seems to be inherited. It is system wide. Opening a new user account does not help.
Running on battery does not hep either.

Sophus..

macaddict0001 · Oct 17, 2004, 06:33 PM

they can't be genuine if it is happening for this reason because some are missing letters.

grayware · Oct 17, 2004, 09:20 PM

This is a real issue then isn't it? I thought I had a buggy 15" Albook but it's more prominent than I thought. I'm glad I came across this thread � how can we band together to present this to Apple because there's certainly an inherent problem with keying input on Apples... I mean, how much time is lostt covering for this problem?!

Didd I spelll thhat riight?

MrForgetable · Oct 17, 2004, 09:56 PM

Originally posted by Sophus:
I bring back to liife thhis old threadd.

I have a brannd nnew 15" Powerbook, and it has the problem (10.3.5), Alsom my iBook annd my Cube still suffers frrom this extremeely annnoyingg bbugg. I have to finish a report by tomoorrow, and it iis almost immpossibblle to do, givenn alll the errors that pops up from normall typing. It is not my typing, because I neveer hhave this problemm oon any of my PCs. The Macs are unusabblle with this bug. I am losing my minnd ovver this!!!

Have any oof you found a fix? At macfixit, some ssugggesteedd thhat it mmay be due to a corruppt postscript fonnt, but I don't know.

PLEASE HELP!!!! PLEASE...

NB: all the typos above is due to this bug, and comes from a normal typing. Playing with the delay and repeat rate for the keyboard does not help. I guess it has something to do with my prefs, or install, or some software culprit, since all my machines have the same programs installed. None of the machines are cloned, but my new Powerbook was set up with the "set up assistant", importing everything from my iBook. The bug thus seems to be inherited. It is system wide. Opening a new user account does not help.
Running on battery does not hep either.

Sophus..

I'm really sorry I can't help, but good luck. It seems like an annoying thing.

Sophus · Oct 17, 2004, 11:02 PM

Originally posted by macaddict0001:
they can't be genuine if it is happening for this reason because some are missing letters.

Thhey arre genuine! I promise you, this is not somethhing I do for fun, believe me, although a missing letter may be due to me, at least alll the double cchharracters are due to the kkeyboard bug.

I believe it muust be somethinng related to the keybooard driver or USB timing issues or something like that. I still think it is software related though. BTW. I have now completed a full reinstall but the problem persists. The topic is now being discussed in the OSX general discussion forum, where I believe it belongs. The bug is not powerbook related. Even peoplle with G5 Powermacs experience this bug, see:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]

Sophus
(desperate)