Keyboard, trackpad issues - MacBook Air

We have a weird issue with my former (now my daughter’s) MacBook Air (2015 I believe).

The trackpad stopped working last week and seems to be busted. I hooked up a USB mouse and that did the trick as far as being able to move the cursor until we can get it in for service.

We can log in with no problems, however once the computer is on and active the keyboard no longer works. Even though it just worked 30 second before when logging in!

Anyone run into this? It seems very odd. I’ve found some Apple support articles somewhat on topic but thought I’d reach out here as well.

Do you have bluetooth keyboard and/or mouse somewhere in your house that once connected to that particular MacBook Air?

My idea is somehow the MBA has settings “Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is preset” set to on. I am not aware of similar settings for keyboard though. Maybe try to turn the bluetooth off, and see if that makes trackpad & keyboard working again?

I’m wondering it’s its either a bad trace on the logic board that only becomes a problem once it heats up a bit, or a swelling battery.

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Just a bluetooth mouse, I’ve always used a USB keyboard with it, but not since giving it to her almost a year ago.

I was wondering that too but it seems too quick from login to less than a minute later trying to type in another program and the keyboard not working. I guess I’ll have to take it in for service.

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This weird trackpad issue just popped up today on my 2019 MBP – Monterey 12.1. The machine would boot normally, login, etc. But the trackpad was unresponsive. Safe boot changed nothing. SMB reset (performed several times) changed nothing. PRAM reset changed nothing.

The thing that fixed it so far was to activate old my external Magic Trackpad (the one with battery power), which worked fine. Using the Magic Trackpad I toggled off/on all the Trackpad settings in System Preferences. The result was to wake up the MBP’s trackpad, which now has been working normally for several hours.

There’s nothing obviously wrong with the MBP – no battery swelling, no chassis damage.