I've just bought a Magic Mouse and have noticed that its sensitivity between primary/secondary clicking is a little off - it's often registering primary clicks as secondary clicks despite a firm click on the appropriate side of the mouse. To get around this I've tried turning off secondary click in the mouse preferences panel (i.e to use it as a single button mouse), but when I do this the click doesn't work at all (either as primary or secondary) and I have to dig out my trusty USB mouse to re-activate secondary click and be able to use the Magic Mouse again.
I've tried installing the Magic Mouse software update 1.0, and all other software updates are current to no avail. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem or has a fix? Otherwise the mouse is great, but constant mis-registering of primary/secondary clicks is getting annoying!
Same problem here. I am frequently getting primary clicks when I want secondary clicks. I have tried tapping in different areas, but can't seem to find the right spot. It's really annoying! I may have to go back to my old non-wireless Razer 😟
I have exactly the same problem with my Mac Pro and 10.6.2.
I also have to set the primary button to right, to get a left click.
Very frustrating in deed.
No problems with 10.5. only with Snow Leopard.
OK, I had this exact problem and it is now solved.
In fact my symptoms were as follows:
I bought a MacBook in december (my first Mac)
I bought the Magic Mouse and it was the first thing I set up. Before I configured anything or installed any software.
It never worked properly once:
I could not get a single click unless I:
- used only one finger on the mouse (could not touch any other part of the magic mouse surface with another finger, without getting a rightclick
- Set Secondary Click was checked on, and set to "Right"
- With those settings, it would only work as a left handed mouse (which was great because coincidentally I'm left handed)
- The Magic Mouse would never work anywhere in the System Preferences pane ... I had to use my track pad (quite infuriating)
I have at least temporarily solved it. I did not use Magic Prefs to solve it, although I did try that, and it had no effect.
So, I was about to return the Magic Mouse when I had the opportunity to try it on a colleague's macbook (about 2 years old, running Snow Leopard) and it worked properly. I was stunned. And happy.
In summary, one of your user preferences has corrupted the Magic Mouse setting. I don't know which one of mine it was to this day. My suggestion is to do what the (third) Apple Genius did at the Vancouver, BC Apple Store in PAcific Centre mall: He created a temporary folder. Then he dumped every single one of my preferences into it, then deleted all my preferences. This is an annoying thing to rebuild, but worth it. Magic Mouse works perfectly.
... but here's the whole story if you are interested.
I phoned Apple Care on Saturday morning February 20. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a very pleasant representative (aren't they all?) who tried this:
- had me check all the drivers to make sure I had the most recent (I did - September 2009)
- had me alter my Magic Mouse and Trackpad settings (various, didn't work)
- had me create a new user account on the Mac, and tried the mouse in that user (it worked slightly better in that the left/right secondary click settings worked, but I still couldn't get a proper primary click - didn't work)
- unpaired and repaired the Bluetooth connecction (didn't work)
- had me pair another wireless mouse (a Microsoft Presenter Mouse 8000 - I know - heresy!) which worked perfectly
- had me remove the batteries in the Magic Mouse and reinsert (didn't work)
-
Then he very politely suggested the only two alternatives he could see left to him.
(a) Reinstall the OS (10.6.2)
(b) Take it into the Apple store
Since I live a 15 minute walk from an Apple Store, I took door number two. He booked me an appointment and I went straightaway.
At my Apple store appointment they tried a variety of things but the most significant was that they booted from a USB drive connected to my Mac, loaded with OSX 10.6.2 and the mouse worked perfectly. They were very surprised by the contrary behaviour of the mouse.
Unfortunately, at that time, they decided a clean OS install and upgrade was in order which they offered to do. I decided to wait and have them do it (in case!) and so sat for another 45 minutes while it installed and then upgraded my Macbook. Don't worry, you won't have to do this.
The problem returned frustratingly after all the installs and upgrades finished.
By that time, I was on my third genius (my 2 hours in the store spanned two lunch breaks), and he quickly posited that my preferences were corrupt (These are not overwritten by an OS instal, you see).
He deleted my Magic Mouse preferences.
We then reset my Magic Mouse preferences, and it worked perfectly for literally 20 seconds... then suddenly STOPPED working again!
So he removed all my preferences and had me start rebuilding them (you know, dock position and size, desktop background, desktop view options ... the basic stuff) and so far, my Magic Mouse is working perfectly.
This is somewhat annoying since I keep coming across applications that I have to re-customize to my preferences (even Mac Mail lost my mail account settings, but thankfully, not my mail).
I hope this works for you. I advise you try this only under the supervision of an experienced Mac guru (which may be YOU, of course, certainly not me).
Finder > [Primary Harddrive] > Library > Preferences
Take all and move into a temporary folder.
Take a deep breath, and delete all. (I take no responsibility for any following issues or frustrations you may encounter - again, I encourage you to contact an Apple Care representative).
Go to your System Preferences and reconfigure your Magic Mouse Settings.
One follow up comment. I remember installing and configuring my Magic Mouse as pretty much the first thing I ever did with my Mac, before setting up Expose/Spaces etc or even the dock.
This doesn't explain why the mouse never worked, since there should have been nothing in my preferences library other than my user account details.
So either my memory serves me poorly, or some very basic user preference corrupted the Magic Mouse.
Thanks for sharing your own experiences and comments. Like Hoto, my problem was caused by a preference file corrupting my Magic Mouse settings. Since my original post I'd spent an hour or two on the phone with Apple Care Europe followed by a couple of emails and it was narrowed down to a preference in a folder called ByHost (good work Tom M. at Apple in Ireland!). If you're having similar problems, there's no guarantee that this folder is where your problem preference is hiding but it could be worth a try. The alternative is to delete all your preferences, as Hoto suggests.
I have a mac pro running the latest leopard. I use the mouse with my left hand. I obtained a mighty mouse and went through the upgrades and reboot. Initially I used it with the mouse&keyboard preference and then after upgrading, the separate mouse. I set the secondary click to left. I find that to do a primary click, I can only have one finger on the mouse, two fingers or a middle finger does the secondary click. I read through this thread and tried an experiment. I set up a new account and when I tried the mouse it worked perfectly. Primary click works with two fingers down and secondary click with index finger lifted. I copied those preferences to my other account but it didn't help. But it does tell me that something on my primary account is buggered. I'm not at the point where I want to toss all my preferences yet. perhaps a reboot with the new preference would work. I hate rebooting because I have so much going on... Oh wait, talk about coincidence, the power just went out to our whole area so my macpro is rebooted! Luckily I'm writing this on my laptop. And sadly no that did not fix my primary account. It even has the keys swapped so there is another influence on the mouse prefs which is not called mouse. Too add to this mystery, the new account doesn't have a mouse preferences any more but it still works fine.
Just an update. I gave up and phoned Apple support. The first guy was not too helpful and he ended up loosing me when he put me on hold. The second guy was much better and solved the problem. I moved all my preferences into another folder on the desktop and then put back ones that I needed. I logged out and logged back in and the mouse worked fine. I still have all the old preferences and I can put back any that I need but for now life is good. Mouse is behaving. now if i could just fix this teleport preference problem...
Got it! It turns out that a hidden file is involved. In the preferences folder ByHost, there is a hidden file ".GlobalPreferences.xxx.plist". You can view this file in the property list editor but since it is a hidden file it is a little difficult to see. Since you probably can't see it, you can't get rid of it, but you can get rid of it by moving the ByHost folder out of your preferences, create a new ByHost folder and move all the visible items back. The invisible .GlobalPreferences.xxx.plist file will stay behind. If you can open that invisible file in the property list editor, you'll see an item "com.aple.mouse.swapLeftRightButton". This is what is causing the problem. Mine exists because I use the mouse with my left hand as I use the trackpad with my right hand. So upon setting up my previous mouse for left hand operation, this preference item got set in there. When I changed to the magic mouse, it clashed with it and created the problem. I also note that the preference folder has a .GlobalPreferences.plist which is a hidden file as well. I don't know if that could harbor the preference item of debacle, but you could also do the same thing. Move the preferences folder, create a new one and move all visible items back leaving the invisible one behind. Of course to take effect, log out and then log back in. Problem solved!
