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After updating to macOS Catalina – when I type, macOS will randomly repeat keypresses and sequences of keypresses.

Below are some examples of some mistypes just while writing this article:

macOS => macOSmacOS
Below => Below elow
Below => BelBelow 
Some => SomeSome
Some => Someome

macOS also duplicates Enter and control-sequences like Ctrl-C and CMD+V.

After updating to macOS Catalina, I also updated brew with brew upgrade, so maybe I have some odd update in there that might be causing this issue?

~ $ brew list
allure
ansible
apr
apr-util
argon2
aspell
autoconf
bash-completion
bdw-gc
brotli
c-ares
caddy
cmake
composer
ctags
curl-openssl
dnsmasq
doctl
fdupes
freetds
freetype
fzf
gdbm
gettext
git
glib
gmp
gnu-sed
go
graphicsmagick
htop
httpie
icu4c
jansson
jasper
jemalloc
jpeg
jq
jsoncpp
libev
libevent
libffi
libidn
libmetalink
libpng
libpq
libsodium
libssh2
libtermkey
libtiff
libtool
libuv
libvterm
libyaml
libzip
little-cms2
luajit
mariadb
mongodb
msgpack
ncdu
ncurses
neovim
nghttp2
nnn
oniguruma
openldap
openssl
[email protected]
pcre
pcre2
php
pkg-config
python
python3
python@2
rbenv
readline
rtmpdump
ruby
ruby-build
sdl2
sdl2_image
shellcheck
sphinx-doc
sqlite
the_silver_searcher
tidy-html5
tig
tmux
unibilium
unixodbc
webp
xz

I have tried multiple different keyboards. It feels like restarting the computer will make the issue go away for maybe 3 minutes and then the random key repeats start happening again.

What could be causing this and where should I be looking? I can't work like this and it's also dangerous because sometimes macOS repeats e.g. the enter-key which has already caused some confirmation-dialogs to be silently confirmed. :|

Thanks for your help!

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8
  • Same problem with me. In my case, single keys are repeated (not macOS -> macOSOS, but rather macOS to macccccOOS). Tried resetting NVRAM, didn't help.
    – Ilker Mutlu
    Oct 9, 2019 at 9:41
  • I upgraded to Catalina and installed Little Snitch. Found a similar reddit thread -> reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/df4oqq/… but the issue doesn't appear to be widespread.
    – njha
    Oct 9, 2019 at 22:52
  • After a restart which was totally unrelated to this, the problem seems to have gone away. Doesn't actually make sense, but no glitches since last night.
    – Ilker Mutlu
    Oct 10, 2019 at 8:03
  • @IlkerMutlu I did a restart, but the it’s still happening for me!
    – Simon
    Oct 10, 2019 at 12:02
  • 2
    This problem seems to show up most for me in GMail, although it is definitely happening in Microsoft Word too. Having said that, I have not had it occur once in the text boxes on StackExchange. Resetting NVRAM and SMC has no effect. Turning off auto-complete and spell-check in Apple->Sys->Keyboard doesn't help. Just happened in this textbox. Glad to see others having the problem too.
    – TedPavlic
    Oct 14, 2019 at 6:09

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
19

Do you happen to have Wacom settings/software installed? Seems that completely uninstalling all Wacom software and deleting its other files solves the issue.

Looks like doing so solved the problem for me, testing for 10 minutes and the issue doesn't occur.

Logitech settings may be a reason too.

Kudos to rakdavid.

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4
  • Still have logitech settings installed, removed wacom, no issues in ~6 hours of use. Looks good!
    – njha
    Oct 15, 2019 at 1:49
  • I did have Wacom drivers installed. I've done a clean install of Catalina in the meantime but that could very well have been the issue!
    – Macks
    Oct 15, 2019 at 7:30
  • Great tip! I installed the latest Wacom drivers from their site (released yesterday Okt 14th) and it seems to have resolved this issue for me.
    – Maarten
    Oct 15, 2019 at 15:16
  • 1
    Uninstalled the Wacom drivers by following the instructions here and the problem has been gone for 24 hours: wacom.com/en-us/…
    – Rjak
    Oct 17, 2019 at 7:21
2

It seems like resetting the NVRAM has solved the issue for me: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

EDIT: Seems like only temporarily... after putting my computer to sleep a few times, the issue has resurfaced. :(

Improve this answer
6
  • Are you using a 2016 MacBook Pro by chance?
    – njha
    Oct 9, 2019 at 22:52
  • @njha I also have this issue and I’m using a 2016 MBP, but with an external keyboard.
    – Simon
    Oct 10, 2019 at 12:01
  • @njha I know what you're getting at but it's definitely a software issue. I've tried 3 different external keyboards and they all have that issue. I have a 2017 MacBook Pro.
    – Macks
    Oct 10, 2019 at 19:07
  • 1
    It is happening to me as well. It is super annoying, I tried resetting the NVRAM like you suggested. It has gotten better, but the problem hasn't gone away. You'ou'd think that apple would be able to do a bit better with an update like this.............oh well
    – Samuel Lee
    Oct 11, 2019 at 1:46
  • User with 2015 MacBook Pro hero here, same thing happening
    – Luke
    Oct 13, 2019 at 15:43

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