Reader question: Strange characters in the Google input

A few days ago I got an email from a reader who had a problem that I just had no idea what could be the cause. He described it to me like this:

My iMac is around 2 years old. Recently I've always had a problem after hibernation when I want to write something on Google. Then, after some delay, the letters come first, followed by small letters with different characters over them. I can only write correctly again after a restart.

RAM, graphics card, driver ... ???

My ideas went in the direction that maybe the graphics card is defective or no correct driver for the graphics card is installed. But with a 2 year old iMac there are seldom problems with drivers ... Likewise, a defective RAM module could possibly cause such phenomena, but then rarely always in the same place, but rather randomly scattered over everyday life. In short, I was a bit at a loss ...

Solution: Two input devices confuse the Mac

After a short time, however, the reader reported back and was able to solve the problem himself. He had gotten the tip in a forum that this phenomenon with the strange characters above the "normal" characters can occur when using the mouse and trackpad together.

His comment on this: "You wouldn't have thought of that in life."… I see it the same way. ;-)

By the way, the problem seems to be limited to OS X El Capitan. If you use the current operating system and have two active "mouse pointer input devices" such as trackpad and mouse, you may also get such cryptic characters in the input field. It would also be interesting to know whether it also happens when you use a mouse and a Wacom tablet, because this certainly happens more often.

I can only say: Thank you, Heinz! Both for the extraordinary problem and for its solution! : D

Jen Kleinholz( Founder & Sir Apfelot )

Jens has been running the blog since 2012. He acts as Sir Apfelot for his readers and helps them with technical problems. In his spare time he rides electric unicycles, takes photos (preferably with the iPhone, of course), climbs around in the Hessian mountains or hikes with the family. His articles deal with Apple products, news from the world of drones or solutions to current bugs.