MacBooks crashing with aluminum keyboards

Some users are having problems with the Apple Aluminum keyboards causing crashes when attached to their MacBook computers.

Apple Discussions poster KimonoW:

"Plugin USB Aluminium Keyboard and the MB instantly hangs with the "you must restart error". It was working a treat with Tiger. The same keyboard works perfectly in a Macbook Pro."

Affected users have tried updating the firmware on the keyboard to ensure the software is the latest, but this has not fixed the problem. This issue is the result of a software incompatibility because the keyboards worked fine on the systems in the past, and currently work properly when attached to other systems. This relatively long-standing problem has been tracked to users having the "DoubleCommand" software installed. This software is a kernel extension which offers useful key remapping functionality, but seems to have bugs in some configurations.

It is recommended to first try updating the DoubleCommand software to the latest version, even going to a prerelease beta version if the functionality of the software is required. If that does not work, users should uninstall the software until a software fix is issued by the developer. To uninstall the software, locate and delete the "DoubleCommand" folder in the /Library/StartupItems/ directory, and remove the "DoubleCommand" preference pane located in the /Library/PreferencePanes/ directory.

Feedback? http://www.iphoneatlas.com/contact.

Resources