Interior light only comes on once ignition key inserted

I'm looking for some help in daignosing a problem with my Rivage Cabriolet. Firstly the symptoms:

1. When setting the alarm, the alarm thinks a door is open (obviously none are and the door switches work fine)
2. When unsetting the alarm, the interioir light does not turn on nor does the on board computer come on until:
3. Inserting the key into the ignition and the interior light comes on and the on board computer turns on too

Now this seems to be some sort of ignition barrel/switch problem (as if you insert a flat piece of plastic into the ignition everything also works as it should, so seems to be some sort of connection problem).

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

1. check all the brown/white wires to the door pins, and also look to see if a boot light is fitted and check the wiring for that too

1. sounds like whoever fitted the alarm did a poor job of it, the interior light & dash get a permanent 12v direct from the fusebox and shouldn't have been cut into by the alarm at all
2. see 2

Thanks for the tips rubjonny, I've carried all of that out, but will check again.

Had the car for 8 years (the alarm was already installed when I bought it) and it has been fine until about 2 weeks ago when the battery went flat…..I'm wondering if I've managed to reset something on the alarm via the keyfob or if something was reset when the battery went flat.

possible, but either way i still dont see why the alrm was spliced into the power feed for the clocks and interior light, mkaes no sence. the EARTH to the int light yeah, then it will 'see' when the light is on. but the power?!

Just in case anyone else has similar symptoms, when I say inserting the key into the ignition, I mean just that, I'm not turning the key in any way……

I'd say you need to get the alarm removed and a new one properly installed. If they've bodged it that badly that the interior light comes on, how do you know they've wired it up properly to do its job and protect the car from theft? Or not randomly go off at 4am for no reason, etc.

Hopefully once the dodgy alarm (install) is removed they can reverse the bodges and will solve all the electrical issues mentioned in this thread.

hmm thats even more strange. the key-in-ignition live on the mk1 is only used for the hood and radio switch-on on the later cabs. god knows why the alarm fitter even touched the wiring for that!