How to stop OS X from switching input method (keyboard layout) automatically?

Question

After using the wireless keyboard that comes with the iMac, I have switched to a MS Ergo Natural 4000 one. Surprisingly I had to install extra software as OS X could not work out which keyboard I had.

After which I went into sys prefs and set the main input method to be "British - Microsoft" first and "Swiss German" second (what the wireless keyboard is), on the "input sources" tab:

However... OS X keeps resetting my input method back to Swiss German which is driving me bananas.

I have the flag thingy top right so I can see when this changes.

N.B. I have "input source options" set to "use the same one in all documents" which I am assuming means keep the language the same for anything running.

It also flips back on the login page.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Answer 1

If the system is switching language without you asking to do so, it means that the current input source somehow becomes unavailable. This can happen if you are using a custom input source (put under ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts) and then lock your screen. The lock screen is owned by the system and thus does not have access to your custom layouts, only the system-wide ones. The current source being unavailable, it will automatically revert to another one.

To resolve this issue, ensure that your custom keyboard layout is put under /Library and not /Users/You/Libary. After moving the file, remove the input source from the list, reboot and then put it back again.

Answer 2

One possibility that I had in a similar case is that you are hitting the keyboard shortcut to switch input sources.

In Snow Leopard preferences, the default to select the previous input source is Command-Space. In your screen capture of the Language & Text preferences you can see that this shortcut is active (the other shortcut, to select the next input source, is inactive in that screen capture):

It's a bit odd^† that Command-Space is used, as that is also used for Spotlight. But if a shortcut is assigned multiple times, then Snow Leopard would show a warning, which your screen capture does not show. So, Command-Space won't activate Spotlight on your Mac:

^{† From Apple support: Command-Space: Show or hide the Spotlight search field (if multiple languages are installed, may rotate through enabled script systems)}

Answer 3

In my case, I had a custom .keylayout created with Ukelele, manually copied over to /Library/Keyboard Layouts.

I had two input sources configured under Keyboard Settings. A built-in one (British) and my custom keyboard layout.

In some applications, I could switch between the two keyboard layouts freely. However, there were applications (Calendar, Safari) where the OS refused to switch to my custom layout. If I had the custom layout active, the layout would automatically change back to the British one as soon as I switched over to Calendar.

After a lot of head scratching, I downloaded a known good custom .keylayout from the internet. I compared this layout to mine and noticed a few differences.

This is what I had in my custom layout:

<keyboard group="126" id="-2" name="Custom Layout" maxout="3">

And this is what I changed it to (using the downloaded one as a reference):

<keyboard group="0" id="16003" name="Custom Layout" maxout="1">

I removed my custom layout under Keyboard Settings, logged out, logged back in, and added the custom layout back again.

Unsure if it was the group, the id, or the maxout value causing the problem, but I am glad to say the issue is gone now.

As a side note, what is interesting, is that I have been using this custom layout for a decade, and never experienced this issue. Now that I am using a new Mac (with macOS Monterey 12.4) is when I first come across this problem.

Answer 4

@Brunni's answer from 2013 helped me a lot with this, but it doesn't solve the problem completely in 2022 (see comments below that answer).

I had the same problem as @CharlesRezk and @a.s.t.r.o on MacOS 12.1 when I tried to install/copy a keyboard layout bundle created with Ukelele by doing Copy & Paste in the Finder. MacOS asks for my PW, and after providing it, it copies the files to /Library/Keyboard Layouts, but they maintain my user as owner rather then setting it to root. If the owner is not root, you get exactly the behaviour reported in the original question.

The solution is to use the Terminal and either copy the files as root or do sudo cp ..., which sets the permissions right. Specifically you can do:

$ sudo su -
$ cd /Library/Keyboard\ Layouts
$ cp -r /path/to/ukelele.bundle ./

Works like charm now... ;)

BTW, the "Install" feature in the Ukelele-UI (v3.5.4) does not work properly. So after creating your keyboard layout, copy the bundle manually to /Library/Keyboard\ Layouts.

Other than this, Ukelele was really useful to create the new layout bundle.

Answer 5

I'm on Sonoma and this is driving me up a wall. The only fix that worked for me is to copy the kb layout in /Library/Keyboard Layouts. Reboot, then select the layout in Language settings. To make the layout stick open the virtual keyboard viewer once while in the layout then close the viewer after typing a bit.

Answer 6

The MS layout for the keyboard on OSX sucks

Use this layout instead http://liyang.hu/osx-british.xhtml

Seems to work