Strange, Very Strange Trackpad Issue

dml said:

Just bought a MacBook Air. 5 days later, a very strange problem with the trackpad surfaces. It won't allow me to "click" anything anymore. Weirdly, most of the other functions are still working properly :

- Scrolling still works;
- Two finger tap sill brings up a contextual menu;
- Gestures work fine.

Everything works, except the single most important function : clicking!!! Neither clicking nor single finger tapping will work.

I tried plugging in a wired Apple mouse. To no avail : I can control the cursor, but clicking won't work!

I also tried resetting the System Management Controller (SMC), as well as the PRAM and NVRAM. Didn't help either.

Anyone has an idea as to how I might resolve such an issue?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Click to expand...

Check the click speed. I saw this happen before and the click speed was too high so no one was able to click fast enough.

dml said:

Do you mean the "double-click" speed? I checked it and it seems normal. But in my case, even the single-click won't work...

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the setting. In my job we had the same problem at that turned out to be the problem. Not really sure what's your issue. If I were you I would return it back to the store since it's 5 days old. For that amount of money, it should be working flawlessly.

sounds so familiar!

You should check out this thread to see if it's the same issue that I recently had, and resolved by following the suggestion to press-n-hold the trackpad's "button" firmly.

Certainly with such a new unit I'd probably do the same: make it Apple's "problem", not your own in case there are other gremlins inside that are waiting to show up.

With my symptoms being identical to you that even external mice couldn't click I was floored when the problem ended up being so easily worked around in my case (with a long out-of-warranty MBP). I kept going back and forth trying to diagnose and decide: hardware or software. The external mouse failures certainly pointed to software more, but I believe ultimately it was that the main trackpad was causing the system to think a click to already in play... even though I wasn't doing any clicking so the external click was being skipped as well.

The main thing is to enjoy your computer!

I had this same problem. Everything was working fine except single click, the scrolling would work and so would gestures. I did however find the problem. It may not have been the same issue as yourself. I had a bluetooth magic mouse connected to it, that I forgot to turn off. This was in a drawer with something resting on it, holding the mouse click down. As soon rectified this, all back to normal.

So perhaps it was a Bluetooth device causing the problem for yourself also. But probably not, just me being a douche.

I currently have this same issue but it comes and goes. suddenly everything works on the trackpad except right and left click. its happened maybe twice in 2 weeks. a reboot seems to fix it. i dont know what the cause is.

i do not use bluetooth on this device. in fact its turned off.

Thank you... Thank you.

This has been driving me crazy for DAYS. I've looked all over the internet but it was a hard issue to search for. My right-click, gestures, etc all worked, just no single clicking! I had the soft click enabled but neither soft or actual click-clicking didn't work.

Lo and behold, my Bluetooth magic mouse shoved in my backpack from the beginning of the week had still been on and connected. It was pressed down from other things in my backpack. Soon as I pulled it out, everything was back to normal!

Unbelievable. iTrubes, thank you for sharing your crazy experience that I just shared in. I signed up for this site just to post this and will likely never post again haha.

YoshioDuo said:

This has been driving me crazy for DAYS. I've looked all over the internet but it was a hard issue to search for. My right-click, gestures, etc all worked, just no single clicking! I had the soft click enabled but neither soft or actual click-clicking didn't work.

Lo and behold, my Bluetooth magic mouse shoved in my backpack from the beginning of the week had still been on and connected. It was pressed down from other things in my backpack. Soon as I pulled it out, everything was back to normal!

Unbelievable. iTrubes, thank you for sharing your crazy experience that I just shared in. I signed up for this site just to post this and will likely never post again haha.

Click to expand...

i was just about to post an almost identical story.

OP I know you returned your computer already and since they couldn't figure it out in the store this obviously wasn't your exact issue, but for me occasionally I notice that if i connect to a BT mouse (the magic trackpad in my case) the click feature on the air's trackpad sometimes stops working. VERY frustrating.

the first time it happened i had no clue what was going on. i wasn't too worried about it so i just forced a reboot. but it persisted! eventually i had to shut it down with a terminal command and then it fixed it. i forgot about it until it happened again - that's when i figured out it was the BT trackpad.

it only happens occasionally (in my case 2-3 times) so i'm glad it's not something i have to remember to worry about every time i connect to my TBD or walk in and out of range of my wireless peripherals.

The BT Related Advice Worked ...

Hi! Many thanks to the posters here! My trackpad single click stopped working and everything I tried failed. It turned out my MacBook had connected to my Mac Mini (in my office about 10 feet away from where I use my MacBook), and the single click stopped working (via external USB mouse, too). My BT is usually OFF, but I turned it on recently to use BT head-phones at a coffee shop! As soon as I shut BT down on my MacBook - all was well! Thanks MACRUMORS!