Mac OS Big Sur - Dialog box not responding to mouse clicks

This issue can be resolved by killing the Dock. Open Terminal, run "killall Dock", and you'll be able to interact with dialog buttons again. I suspect many of the other solutions here work because of a restart.

The the issue still exists on 12.5, let's see if 12.6 fixes it...

I've found 2 ways to (sometimes) get around the problem.

1. Minimise the dialog (works well for settings) and open again - going immediately to the section you want to access.
2. resize the dialog box - again - clicking immediately to the section you wish to access.

Sometimes multiple resizes / minimises are required if many ops are needed.

Cheers

I've been having the same problem. Thank you for mentioning that clicking the "escape" key makes the dialog boxes close. It's gratifying have a short-term solution to this annoying re-occurring problem.

I've figured out a way to resolve this on my machine (the System Preferences thing is the real bugaboo!): removing your `com.apple.systempreferences.plist` preferences file.

The step-by-step:

1. Close System Preferences
2. Go to Finder and select your user/home folder.
3. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J.
4. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder.
5. Select Library.
6. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist.
7. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the System Preferences, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop -- you won't need it anymore. If it didn't work, well, that sucks. Return the file from your desktop to the place you got it from, overwriting the newer one, then restart.

Hope that helps; let us know if it does!

Kind regards,

Erwin

PARTIAL SOLUTION and critical bug.

I also experience the same issue. So basically there are two different scenarios for me:

1. When I open dialog window, it freezes. Can't click anywhere on dialog, even Cancel button. When I resize a little bit it become responsive again. You can see it on my screen share https://streamable.com/c536f4 There are click recorded too.
2. Second scenario it when I open System Preferences and try to change ANY setting. For instance, I'm able to open Internet Accounts but can't do anything there. It is the same with any other setting. Here is screen share with General: https://streamable.com/bosmm1 The problem with System Preferences is bigger because I can't resize this windows, so solution from 1. can't be applied here.

I can tell that first problem with resize solution is not such important to fix but System Preferences is CRITICAL for me because I can't change ANY setting.

For you information I've already reinstalled MacOS but it didn't help.

Details:

MacOS 11.1 (20C69)

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)

2,3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 1536 MB

If you need more details please just tell me and I will provide that.

How can Dialog Boxes not work with the mouse? This is crazy!

I've restarted my laptop (MacBook Pro 2020) multiple times and this is happening consistently every single time. Ah, and it affects System Preferences too!

Unbelievable!

Hello rgbvgg,

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. We understand that you're having issues with your trackpad becoming unresponsive when specific features are being used. Try some of the steps in this article:

If an app freezes or quits unexpectedly on Mac

Does this occur in safe mode and another user account?

How to use safe mode on your Mac

Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac

Keep us posted on how it goes.

Best wishes.

Boot into Safe Mode by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists.  Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

I think I may have fixed the issue on my machine. It has been error free for around a month now and although other's experience may differ, here is what I did to fix mine.

1. I took a look at Process Monitor and ordered by the 'kind' column. I have a Mac M1 so was interested in anything that was non-native - these would be the Intel based processes.
2. I noticed a couple of apps that were Intel but from reputable places - Spotify, WhatsApp etc (I left these alone)
3. I also noticed 1 app that although I had installed some time back, was no longer needed, in my case this was the Devolo wireless plug manager. They are great devices but I didn't remember agreeing to installing a daemon (service) as part of the app.
4. I removed the Devolo app and service through it's uninstall process
5. A reboot and check that no Devolo processes remained and (so far) no further issues !!

If anyone wants to try this, I'd suggest listing which apps / daemons you don't need / use and uninstall them - if you have the issue on an M1 then pay particular attention to the Intel based items. If you don't know what it is or don't recognise then I'd suggest leaving it there as it may be an important / needed service - only delete what you recognise and no longer need.

As a bit of background, I think I located the issue to an interference with the fsevents service as this is responsible for the UI dialogs that this issue effects, I was ready to dig deeper into this (after doing a bit of reading) but, fortunately don't seem to have the issue any more.

I have the exact same issues with finder dialogs for opening/saving being frozen and not responding to clicks and system preferences not responding to clicks. I found that this is related to external displays because these are the scenarios that I have tested and results observed:

• External display not plugged in - Finder dialogs and system preferences work fine;
• External display plugged in and the MacBook lid open (extended display mode) - finder dialogs and system preferences are not responding to clicks;
• External display plugged in and the MacBook lid closed (power connected to MacBook) - finder dialogs and system preferences work fine.

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) with 2,2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 and Radeon Pro 555X 4 GB

External display: LG 34GK950F

Dear Missy5937

Sorry to tell you but you completely missed the point. In our cases, the trackpad and/or mouse still work perfectly, can select different windows, click everywhere and so on.

The problem lies in pop-up windows (as in "save as" for a document) as well most of the System Preferences windows* are irresponsive to the clicks. Those two types of windows refuse any input. The Tab key is often our only resort to interact with such windows.

For most "save as" and similar dialog boxes, resizing them (each one, each time) somehow allows mouse input again, which is a good but annoying workaround to this problem. However, as the System Preferences windows cannot be resized, many systems cannot be reached. The "lock changes" button is by the way not the cause as this one cannot be clicked either.

*only System preferences responding to the mouse clicks in my case :

• Mission control
• Spotlight
• Trackpad
• Displays

This makes it difficult to update my mac, as, well, the Software Update menu is not in the above list...

By the way, I am running BigSur 15.5.2 on an M1 chip macbook pro 13 inch.

In the hope this helps the support in identifying the bug,

I have the same issues, both for unresponsive click on file picker dialog and several settings pane. I'm running Monterey (12.3.1) in Mac Mini M1. I got temporary solution for these issues.

1. For the unresponsive file picker dialog, you can just resize the dialog.
2. For the unresponsive settings in System Preferences e.g in Network pane, you can first minimize the window and then click the System Preferences icon on the dock to restore the window back to your screen.

Still hitting this issue on a 12.6 Mac in all incarnations:

• Save dialogs are not clickable. Only resizing helps, but most of these dialogs are not resizable.
• Same deal with the System Preferences menus.
• Can't even save PDF from Chrome because of this. The dialog is neither resizable, nor movable. On top of that, it blocks the entire browser (not just the current tab). Only ESC helps closing it, but a couple of times even that did not help and I had to kill Chrome.

I'm having this problem, too, and it's not a trackpad issue. No mouse clicks are registered either with the built-in trackpad or my external mouse. I'm on a 2020 MacBook Pro 13" Retina (Quad-Core Intel Core i5).