I have a 2011 MacBook Air with OS X Mountain Lion (I've upgraded from Lion). And ever since upgrading my escape key randomly stops working. And it's not that the keyboard on the laptop would be damaged as the same happens if I use Apple's Bluetooth keyboard. So I'm guessing it's a software issue.
Also in some cases pressing ctrl+esc achieves the same thing as just esc so I'm 100% it's not a hardware problem.
Does anybody have any idea what this might be all about and how to fix it?
edit: the escape key stops working completely but it starts working again after I restart the computer.
edit2: this usually happens after the computer wakes from sleep. So it's not like that is just stopps working in the middle of using it, but rather after I put it to sleep (or just close the lid) and then open it again.
Has nobody got the same issue? Is there a better place to ask OS X related questions than Super User maybe?
Best Answer
If this problem happens in every application then it is indeed a system wide problem. If it only happens in one application it's an application problem.
This problem might also come from another (modifier) key getting stuck.
To check if the Esc key is ignored by the system itself or if another key is stuck use the Keyboard Viewer:
Go to Apple → System Preferences...
→ Keyboard
Enable Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar
Then when the problem happens again display the keyboard viewer and check if any keys are stuck. If not try using the esc key there and see if it displays as being pressed. If not then you probably have a driver problem.
You could then try installing your system on another drive and try to reproduce the issue on a clean install.