Can no longer click on trackpad (Yosemite, mid-2009 MBP)

[TJ82]

Girlfriend started complaing last night that she couldn't click and drag to highlight text all of a sudden. I played around with it, trying different Apps and browsers and seems like she was correct. Restarted and reset the PRAM and still didn't help.

Went to deselect the option 'Tap to click' in preferences, and was going to reselect it again when all hell breaks loose.

Can no longer click at all, in any way. Can't even find a way to get back into system preferences to reselect 'Tap to click'.

Anyone seen this problem before, is there any way out of clickless hell?

 

[Bruno09]

Can't even find a way to get back into system preferences to reselect 'Tap to click'.

You can activate the "tap to click" from the Terminal.

Do this :

- Cmd + space bar to get Spotlight.
- type in : terminal
- the Terminal.app should show up as best result, otherwise use the down arrow to highlight it, then hit Enter
- in the Terminal window, type in :

defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -bool true

- hit Enter

 

[TJ82]

You can activate the "tap to click" from the Terminal.

Do this :

- Cmd + space bar to get Spotlight.
- type in : terminal
- the Terminal.app should show up as best result, otherwise use the down arrow to highlight it, then hit Enter
- in the Terminal window, type in :

defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -bool true

- hit Enter

Clever! Thanks!

Doesn't work unfortunately

It's an inbuilt trackpad, maybe it has a different name?

 

[Jillykid]

Same problem. Its got to be software related. External mouse or trackpad acts the same. Scrolling fine but clicking not functioning

New macbookpro 2014!

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It's not a settings issue mouse click is also non functional. Impossible to do anything

 

[sealdriver]

Try enabling dragging in the trackpad options of 'Accessibility' in system prefs.

 

[TJ82]

Try enabling dragging in the trackpad options of 'Accessibility' in system prefs.

How to enable it if you can't click it

 

[sealdriver]

How to enable it if you can't click it

Have you tried command-alt-F5, tab to enable mouse keys, hit space bar. Then go to prefs and trying to set with mouse keys?

Not sure if it will work but worth a try.