How to resolve freezes when pressing caps lock on external keyboard
I've been trying to diagnose a problem with my Logitech K120 keyboard paired with a Macbook Pro 15" (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) where occasionally, pressing the caps lock would cause that keyboard to completely stop responding for a few seconds. I'd previously used this keyboard with a Windows PC, and found no issues.
I've tried the following:
- Setting the modifier key to do nothing and then setting it back (per this Superuser answer)
- Installing Karabiner Elements (from the same Superuser thread. This actually makes it worse, in that when the keyboard freezes the computer, it never unfreezes until I kill Karabiner
Has anyone encountered this before? I might just try replacing the keyboard soon, but I was hoping there'd be a software or configuration fix that would work.
Solution 1:
This has happened to me on two different Macs with 3 different bluetooth keyboards. Two Apple keyboards and one Logitech. The symptom is always the same, intermittently the keyboard will freeze for about 5 seconds after hitting the caps lock key.
Restarting the computer will often resolve the issue for a short time but an SMC reset normally resolves the issue more long term.
I have had this experience over the last 5 years and have found documentation of others having the exact same issue for over a decade. It's obviously a larger underlying issue and I'm not sure why it persists.