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Wireless and wired mouse not working

IMac late 2012 running 10.11, it’s been bulletproof aside from the odd core audio issues with my Focusrite interface... BUT, the other day, I was working away and my Magic Mouse just stopped working other than scrolling up and down, I thought it strange, debugged and ran all the usual suggestions, but to no avail. Had a back up wired mouse I plugged in and everything worked fine again, until just a few minutes ago, then that just froze, no scrolling, no movement at all.. Tried different ports, tried recovery mode, tried the wireless mouse, absolutely nothing.

Ideas...? Cheers... Steve

iMac 27", OS X 10.11

Posted on Mar 30, 2020 9:45 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 30, 2020 9:50 PM

First restart in Safe Mode per the directions in Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support and then restart normally.


If you want, you can try the following as a follow-up measure.


The following will require any USB keyboard an mouse. If you don’t have them, borrow or buy them, they are inexpensive!


1.     Connect the USB keyboard and mouse to the computer.

2.     Open System Preferences – Bluetooth

3.     Un-pair the wireless keyboard and mouse.

4.     Turn off Bluetooth

5.     Restart the computer in Safe Mode per the directions in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

6.     Restart the computer normally.

7.     Open System Preferences – Bluetooth

8.     Turn on Bluetooth

9.     Re-Pair the wireless keyboard and mouse.

10.  Unplug the USB keyboard and mouse and begin testing the wireless devices again. 

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4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 30, 2020 9:50 PM in response to SteveStewart

First restart in Safe Mode per the directions in Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support and then restart normally.


If you want, you can try the following as a follow-up measure.


The following will require any USB keyboard an mouse. If you don’t have them, borrow or buy them, they are inexpensive!


1.     Connect the USB keyboard and mouse to the computer.

2.     Open System Preferences – Bluetooth

3.     Un-pair the wireless keyboard and mouse.

4.     Turn off Bluetooth

5.     Restart the computer in Safe Mode per the directions in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

6.     Restart the computer normally.

7.     Open System Preferences – Bluetooth

8.     Turn on Bluetooth

9.     Re-Pair the wireless keyboard and mouse.

10.  Unplug the USB keyboard and mouse and begin testing the wireless devices again. 

Mar 31, 2020 1:06 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Hi there.. Thank you for your prompt reply! It’s a headache this thing, I have done that previously, debugged, unpaired and turned off and on Bluetooth, however, didn’t restart in safe mode with everything unpaired.

What it does do is scroll, but the mouse refuses to move the cursor or pointer. I had found a wired mouse I was using until I could get the time to take it in, and that was working fine, until it just decided to not move either.. Changed USB ports, nope..

Shut it down, unplugged the computer for a while, then restart capping the PRAM, no joy.

Shut it down again, restart in recovery, ran Disc Utilities and hey presto, the wired mouse worked but not the wireless.

Restarted like normal and managed to transfer a bunch of critical files to external HD, before the wired mouse froze again.

Repeated going into recovery and Disc Utilities... it worked for five minutes then just stopped again...

Shut the Mac down, pulled out the plug for a few minutes then tried starting in Recovery.. it booted up to the select language page, but the pointer refused to move at all, tried the whole process again, nope it doesn’t move.

And of course, here in Chiang Mai Thailand, finding a Mac guy is now harder than normal with this rubbish going on... I do have a older back up iMac at least.. but all my work is in this Mac, some saved some not..

Wireless and wired mouse not working

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