How to fix choppy scroll with third party mouse on Mac OS?

If your non-Apple mouse is expecting its own vendor driver support, or that of MS Windows support, then its sporadic behavior with Catalina may be the best you can expect. I have several wired mice here with scroll wheels and they are all clunky under macOS.

My primary pointing device is an Apple Magic Mouse 2. The latter has smooth vertical scrolling, and with some optional settings, horizontal scrolling actions to switch between web browser pages.

Hello lawpaw,

Thanks for that info and for choosing the Apple Support Communities. If we understand correctly, you are unable to use an external mouse with your Mac, as you have an issue with scrolling. To help with this, please follow the relevant steps in these Apple resources, including checking for sources of wireless interference:

If your pointer is jumpy when you use a trackpad, Magic Trackpad, or Magic Mouse

If your Apple wireless mouse, keyboard, or trackpad isn't working with your Mac as expected

Potential sources of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth interference

Cheers!

You can save us asking dozens of questions by submitting a report from this App for us to look at…

EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report if you capture the URL while there…

https://pastebin.com/

Whew, they've changed pastebin & made it harder, but after pasting in, click Create new paste button, then Embed button, then copy the URL...

<script src="https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA"></script>

The important part is...

https://pastebin.com/embed_js/KuvnghqA

Workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...