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

I had the same issue, in my case it was caused by AccessMenuBar app, simply closing this app helps.

I had exactly the same issue, but after restarting the system it was resolved. I have a 16 inch 2020 MacBook pro, i7 16GB RAM. I use two external monitors, with the MacBook closed, an external Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

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 think the problem lied in that I didn't completely/properly shut down my computer in a week or two and somehow the restarting allowed to click things again. and thus update.

long story short, do restart your computer every now and then...

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.

I just ran into this, and I'm not sure exactly what fixed it, but I ran the following commands in a Terminal

killall Finder

killall Dock

Not sure if its Dock or Finder (I suspect Finder) that was the problem child, but restarting both fixed my issue

I've 3 MacBook. All of 3 the same problem. Sometimes you are not able to click anywhere in the upload dialog from any application (Chrome, Safari, Developer IDE, etc...).

I've been having this issue since ever and looks like Apple doesn't really care to solve this. Very sad.

For you that have the same problem: When the dialog appear, and is not clickable, resize it a bit from the bottom and should work.

It's crazy that we have to adapt ourself to the machine problem nowadays instead of progressing.

Bless you Steve

I have this issue too. I've noticed that I can use the mouse to resize the window and then suddenly everything responds.

hopefully that helps.

After I restart the Mac, the issue is gone now.

Reboot will take long time although it works, just log out and log in again you will be back to normal, BTW, 11.2.3 M1 fixed the issue, but Intel still have the same issue

Wow, you're right. Rezising the window fixed it for me as well. Pretty nasty bug. This needs addressed.

Hi Friends this issue has been resolved with the new update of 11.6

how ever another issue i have spotted is that it does drill into sub folders when we move files from Downloads folder in finder

SystemPreferences Hack -- I discovered that if you minimize the System Preferences Dialog (e.g. in the System Preferences [Command-M]) then restore the dialog, it will now respond to mouse clicks!

Thanks much, resizing the dialog fixes it for me. You're right about System Preferences being a bigger issue.

Thanks @jondavidschober. I tried killall Finder and didn't solve the issue. killall Dock solved my issue. but not sure whether i need to run both or killall Dock only