Login screen does not accept any characters

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Level 1

8 points

Login screen does not accept any characters

I am setting up a brand new 2020 16" MacBook Pro for my mother whom is a senior with Parkinson's. Therefore I have enabled multiple asscessibility options. Many of which I cannot remember. It is a definite that I have voice over enabled as it is telling me how to type in the password to login.

PROBLEM IS TYPING the password REGISTERS as NOTHING in the password field on initial login after booting.

I know what the password is and can reboot into recovery mode and log into the account, but that doesn't help me at all. I tried reinstalling the OS (Catalina) and none of the parameters have been reset.

I would love to wipe Clean and start all over again from the beginning. Reinstalling the O/S did not do that.

I am a FreeBSD user myself but the Apple port of BSD is alien to me :)

Thanks in Advance

MacBook Pro 16", macOS 10.15

Posted on May 23, 2020 10:09 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

chrisg_01

Community Specialist

May 25, 2020 4:16 PM in response to Futures20

Hello Futures20,

I understand from your post that your Mac is stuck on the login screen due to accessibility options being enabled. If possible, try disabling accessibility options as instructed in the link below:

Turn on accessibility options in the login window on Mac

If it's not possible to access those options, and you want to start over from new, then follow the directions here: How to erase a disk for Mac

Take care.

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Answer 2

Futures20 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 25, 2020 6:59 PM in response to chrisg_01

Thanks Chris - I did figure this out myself late last night.

Under login Options for the current user, "Sticky Keys" was turned on, making any keyboard button press, delayed by multiple seconds before the key press had an effect. Then a "click" sounded and the character was produced, if I held the key down long enough.

I don't remember turning this feature on under Login Preferences, so if another accessibility option is turning this "feature" on at the login screen as well - that's what really threw me for a loop.

John

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Login screen does not accept any characters

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