Problems with keyboard and login

[Billious1234]

Hi all, hopefully someone knows what is going on here. My Mum's MacBook Air has problems, normally it is just "her" and the problem doesn't exist but this time I am scratching my head. It used to be my Mac but I handed it down to her so I know it well, it is a mid 2013 running 10.12.6.

When you first start it a login screen appears, enter the password and a fresh identical login appears, same user name, enter the password and it doesn't work, click Change User and the same user screen appears again, type in the password and it works but once into the operating system several keys don't work anymore, including 2 used in the login process. Tried safe mode, tried option cmd R P too but nothing has changed and now scratching my head

Any ideas?

 

[ferrarr]

Try to reset the SMC, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295.

You could also attempt to boot into Recovery mode, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314.

 

[Billious1234]

Thanks ferrarr, the SMC reset didn't solve it so reinstalling

thanks for your help

 

[Billious1234]

That didn't work, the password now doesn't work and the switch user option that was working before has vanished, also can't select shutdown to try a clean install from scratch

 

[MacInWin]

Can you boot to recovery and see if there is something wrong with the drive using Disk Utility from there? I also think there is a way to reset passwords from the recovery boot, but I haven't done that myself. Here is a link to a website supposedly showing how to do that: https://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/reset-forgotten-admin-password-mac-osx/

 

[Billious1234]

Can you boot to recovery and see if there is something wrong with the drive using Disk Utility from there? I also think there is a way to reset passwords from the recovery boot, but I haven't done that myself. Here is a link to a website supposedly showing how to do that: https://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/reset-forgotten-admin-password-mac-osx/

Thanks for that, I reinstalled the OS, dropped in a time machine back-up on and same problem. Did a fresh install with no backup and all works fine so it must be a corruption in the settings of the backup