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Multi-touch trackpad gestures not working (Macbook pro 15" unibody)

Hi,

I have a 5 day old Macbook Pro and since yesterday ive been having an intermittent fault with the 3 and 4 finger gestures on the track pad. They stop working and don't even work on restart. the computer needs to be shutdown then turned on again for it to work. When it wasn't working, i created a new user account and switched to that and it worked fine, when i switched back to my account it carried on working fine as well. I do have parallels installed with windows xp but use that rarely and the problem hasn't occurred when i have that on (only reason i mention is is that i noticed the fault a few hours after installing parallels). One of the times the problem occurred is when the computer came out of standby.

Is this a software issue or hardware issue? Does apple know about it and are they making a fix?

Thanx!!

Macbook Pro 15" Unibody, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Nov 5, 2009 5:31 AM

Reply
101 replies

Nov 30, 2009 5:57 AM in response to Markarian421

I have not had the gestures problem for the last few reboots, they seem to be working now. I'm hoping that problem doesn't come back. My computer came with 10.6.1, this seemed to start after the 10.6.2 upgrade. Now it's gone, I hope for good.

I still have the problem where I can't assign an external mouse button to Spaces, which also seems to have started with 10.6.2.

Nov 30, 2009 6:53 AM in response to Max(IT)

Max(IT) wrote:
maverick777 wrote:
I've just call to "Apple Care Support" and I recieve the following:

The problem is known. It concerns the 13" and 15" Macbooks from 2008 - 2009.
There will be a fix in 10.6.3

Lets wait for...

Greetings
Sera


This doesn't explain why not all of us are experiencing this problem ....


The Apple advisor didn't tell to me how many have this problem. He said, that there many requests about this problem. In my office 5 have the problem while another 2 haven't.

Dec 13, 2009 2:43 PM in response to Enzo600

Same problem here. As of an update done yesterday, which included Java, EFI firmware 1.8, and the SuperDrive "noise" fix, I have lost three and four finger gestures. Two fingers work ok

Right now I'm giving my MBP 15 a 1 finger gesture.

I have yet to try the fix proposed on the first page of this thread. I hope it works, and that 10.6.3 permanently corrects the issue.

Dec 15, 2009 7:15 PM in response to Enzo600

I have been having my curser go all over the screen on its own--and making operations like windows opening-- I have a ghost. It would stop for about 5 minutes if I would have it go to sleep-- then it would start up again and really get bad until I closed all the browsers, get it into sleep mode then wake it up. As long as I did not open a browser it would last more then 5 minutes but not always.

After a month of this I finally reloaded 10.6. This did not solve the problem--It is still having the issue so perhaps it is not 10.6.2 but other updates for my other software like my browsers. I am now baffled since I was hoping for a 10.6.3 fix- now I do not know. How many have the single finger independent cursor problem like I have?

Dec 15, 2009 10:07 PM in response to Enzo600

Week old MacBook Pro 15 inch Unibody. Multitouch trackpad gestures all failed a half hour ago, apparently upon wake from sleep. A new test account did not show the fault, although my original account still did not work. I removed all the gestures from System Preferences, Trackpad, and the gestures started working again.

My account was transferred from my iMac G5, via Migration Assistant, without transferring any applications. New software installed from web. Smultron, NetNewsWire, Times, MT-Newswatcher. That is about all so far.

Dec 16, 2009 5:28 AM in response to Enzo600

Same here. This is my first Mac. I it is 7 days old. I used the gestures *all the time*. Very disapointing.
If I will have to wait for 10.6.3 it breaks my exciting new mac experience.

Btw: Hello, I'm new to this forum and to the Mac in general. I am still impressed by the new analyzer in XCode. The gestures impressed me too. Well, till today :P

Dec 20, 2009 5:02 AM in response to Enzo600

I have the 13" macbook pro and this problem has occurred twice, logging off and on again fixed it both times. Does not seem to happen every second reboot but completely randomly. Very annoying! I am going to try repairing disk permissions and verifying the disk (repairing if necessary). Will report back if it happens again. I don't know how it can be related to 10.6.2 because I have been using it for a while and it has only happened in the past two days. Very strange.

Multi-touch trackpad gestures not working (Macbook pro 15" unibody)

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