This is a headscratcher. Was wondering if anyone else experienced it, or knows the cause or solution.

I have an Apple extended aluminum keyboard connected to my MacBook Pro. Yesterday, it started doing strange things. Like tabbing into the address bar when in a form in Firefox. And today, it will not allow me to make a capital U when using the LEFT shift key. It will with the RIGHT shift key, or caps lock. However, if I use the RIGHT shift key, the computer starts making the "dummy" noise for a command it can't complete type of thing, until I depress the LEFT shift key again a couple times. All other letters and numbers work with the LEFT shift key, as well as the right.

Bizzare, no?

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To ask a few obvious questions:

Did you try rebooting?

This is via USB, right? If it's a wireless keyboard, are the batteries good? If USB, is the wire and connector in good shape? Can you try a different USB port on the laptop? And on the keyboard, if it has more than one?

Are any of the keys stuck? I'd try pressing each shift key, command key, option key and control key a few times. And the U key.

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Did you try rebooting?

First thing. Still did it after reboot.

This is via USB, right? If it's a wireless keyboard, are the batteries good? If USB, is the wire and connector in good shape? Can you try a different USB port on the laptop? And on the keyboard, if it has more than one?

USB, cable and connector is good condition. Haven't tried a different port. Will try that tomorrow. It's a hardwire to the keyboard, can't swap that out.

Are any of the keys stuck? I'd try pressing each shift key, command key, option key and control key a few times. And the U key.

Yup, did that. All keys work fine, no sticky.

Kinda weird.

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Wow, it gets even more interesting. So I switched to the other USB port on the computer, same issues. I unplugged the Contour RollerMouseRed that was plugged into the side USB port on the keyboard, thinking, maybe it's being wonky but it manifests in the keyboard. Nope. Still wonky. I even unplugged the shorty USB charger cable for my iPad bluetooth keyboard (even though it wasn't plugged into my ipad keyboard, but just in case). Nope, still wonky. It's definetly the keyboard. AND Found another oddity. When I use the number pad in a google sheet, and type either 4,5, or 6, it sends the active typing point to the address bar. I get the feeling, this keyboard is frelled.

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OK, after I typed the last message. I investigated, to see what keystroke would move focus to address bar. F6 or command+L. So I open SimpleText to see if typing a 4,5, or a 6 would generate a command+L response (Select Line). It did not. Not sure of a way to see if it would generate a F6 keystroke.

Anyhow, after doing that, I go back to Firefox, and type a 4, and it DOES NOT jump up to the address bar. But it wasn't Google Sheets. So I open up a spreadsheet again, and type 4 then 5 then 6 and it STILL doesn't jump me up to the address bar. AND, now I can type a U with the left shift key!?!?

Maybe the F6 button was stuck a lil and I didn't realize. And upon learning that keystroke and depressing it a couple times, cleared the error???? I dunno. We shall see if it manifests again, and if it does, I will try F6 to see if it clears the error.

Crazy!!!!

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Ok, this is getting humorous. Same computer (work laptop, MacBook Pro Mid 2010). Different observation. Just curious if anyone else noticed this "feature".

Because I've had such wonderful ergonomic training at my university, I have my laptop elevated on a box, so the screen is closer to eye level, hence the need for the external keyboard that was having issues earlier discussed.

Today, my desk is particularly messy (paperwork for a show is spread out everywhere), so to keep my iPhone handy, I placed it on the elevated laptop, in the left palm area. It looks like, if I place the phone in just the right place, the computer thinks it's been docked/closed, the built in screen goes dark, and all windows shift to the external. Kinda entertaining, if it wasn't so bloody annoying. Give it a try.

Of course, now that I'm actually trying to find the sweet spot, to describe for y'all, and to learn the avoid this zone", it won't do the magic trick.

Ah! Got it to do it again, but it looks like if you tease it a couple times (screen dims and restores quickly as you move the phone around) it understands not to dim anymore. I dunno. But, the sweet spot (with an iPhone 6) is the rear camera to hit the little gulley around the "fn" button.

PLEASE TELL ME, this is happening to someone else.

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Well, I've transitioned from Windows 10 back to Linux on my main computer. I still have Windows 10 installed on another hard drive if I want to boot into it for something, but I haven't done much on my computer that strictly required Windows for quite awhile now. My wife has talked about using Linux instead of Windows on her Laptop since she's read about privacy issues with Windows so I investigated a few distros and ended up switching myself. This also saves me the need of hunting down which shell extension in my Windows setup causes Windows Explorer to hang every so often. (Not Internet Explorer which wouldn't be a big deal, but Windows Explorer which means the desktop stops responding and is pretty annoying).

I looked the various desktops that aren't real weird or primitive: KDE 5, Gnome, Unity, Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce, Pantheon, and Lxde. I thought I'd end up using a beta of the latest Ubuntu with Gnome updated to the very latest, but I'm liking Cinnamon better. It looks like my copy of MS Office 2007 will run okay on Linux with wine, but so far I haven't found a need to use it with what I do. I have the latest version of Libreoffice installed and it seems to have come a good ways since the last time I used it.

My computer now looks kinda like a hybrid between a Mac and Windows 7. [link]

Anyhow, so far so good.

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I killed the thread with Linux. Sorry.

For fun go to your command line and issue the trace route command for the domain name 'bad.horse', upping the max hops to 60 or so.

Linux> traceroute -m 60 bad.horse

Windows> tracert -h 60 bad.horse

Mac> traceroute -m 60 bad.horse

Then wait for it... I love geeks.

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Aww...

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Hah.

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