5th Mouse Button and Expose and Spaces

I have a razer (death adder) mouse, and I can confirm this problem myself. I've narrowed the bug down to snow leopard not implementing the expose "show desktop" feature with a mouse button. I can utilize "show desktop" with a screen corner, and "all windows" and "application windows" perform with whatever mouse buttons you assign to them (button 4, button 5, etc); "show desktop" just doesn't work with the mouse at all. Anyone here happen to know a better place to submit this bug?

Message was edited by: -DrD-

Ok, so today I did a fresh install on an external drive to eliminate all possible variables and to see if it was an issue with upgrading from 10.5 to 10.6.

The very first thing I did after logging in was to set the mouse buttons up, test them, then log out and back in and sure enough, the buttons work fine when you set them up for the first time, but as soon as logging out, or rebooting, the problem pops right back up.

So for now, I think I may be patient, stick to USB Overdrive X, and hope (and pray) this is resolved in 10.6.1

Remove ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist
Re-login into your account, configure the Spaces-PrefPane
chmod 0400 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist
Re-login again and check the functionality

This solved it for me.

Still no go here.

Sorry 😟

I am having this problem as well. Hopefully with all these complaints the problem will be fixed soon.

Do you have an older 10.5.x installation somewhere around? You could try to copy the file from there and repeat the steps from above.

Count me in. I have a Logitech mx518. Sometimes the 5th mouse button will work for show desktop, and sometimes not. I think it may be tied to my MBP waking from sleep.

Guys found the solution!

copy Expose and Spaces from the programs/utilities folder to the programs folder.

And it should work like a charm 😀

Ok, tried the chmod trick, no go. Tried copying the plist off a 10.5 machine and used the chmod trick, still no good.

And copying Expose and Spaces into Applications from Utilities has no impact either.

After a log out everything goes back to being pear shaped.

Major bummer.

port,
For the record, your solution fixed a related problem for me. I have been using <shift>+mouse-button 3 for my Show Desktop shortcut. In 10.6, holding down the shift key produced a slow-motion, show-all-windows effect. Simply deleting the com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist, logging out and in, and resetting the Exposé preferences fixed the problem for me. Curiously, the above plist never returned, however the Finder plist file was updated. I'm using a Razer Pro|Click BTW.

Ric

Oops, spoke to soon. After a full restart, the problem returned (and so did the symbolichotkeys.plist). I think that I need to find the dictionary for this list to see what needs to get changed. This is a mouse-click that I have ingrained into my very soul, so it will be hard to find a workaround.

Ric

I dunno why, but after the chmod the problem didn't reoccur on my machine.

Overall, I think more SL bugs are to come, I can only hope apple fixes them asap.

Same problem here, Logitech MX something or other. Using the workaround - assigning mouse clicks to keystrokes - worked for me, but this is not the desired behaviour.

Im having the same problem since i updated, pushing the thumb button forward or back will bring the dashboard but pressing it wont bring Expose. I have a logitech MX Mouse. Any updates?

Well, I've tried every solution posted in this topic (even a fresh reinstall of SL) but the problem comes back every time I restart my MAC. It seems to be a common problem when assigning a mouse button - greater than button #2 - to activate Spaces. The keystroke is working perfect with Spaces. The Expose commands are also working for me. It's only Spaces that makes problems.

By the way, I am also using a Logitech mouse: MX500 and MX518 in my case.
I'm not sure if the problem is related only to Logitech mice. I rather think that it can occur with every mouse that has 3 or more buttons.