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

Same issue here! When the file dialog opens (any app) I am not able to select anything.

Selecting files can be archived by using the arrow keys or tab key on the keyboard.

"...occasionally frenzied and repeated clicking finally works."

Following AlEvans47's kooky advice helped me.

Having this problem as well, it isn't a trackpad problem because my external mouse has the same result; it's clicking, the window/dialogue box/system preferences just aren't responding to the clicks.

It's in a user account, and it's not the app's solution.

This issue is happening for me as well. I have a brand new Mac mini M1 with Big Sur 11.2.2.

The problem seems to only happen with dialogue style boxes: Apple ID sign in, Create New Contact pop-up, etc.

This seems like a pretty critical bug that needs to get fixed in the next OS update.

I am facing the same issue but it just started recently, it was fine before. The saveAs dialogue box issue can be solved by pulling first pulling it from the corner to increase its size but nothing works in system preference settings. I am not able to select any options there. This is very annoying. Do we have a solution for this ? is this a bug?

I can also confirm that it is still happening on Monterey. I have an Intel Macbook Pro running macOS 12.1. I started having the problems when I upgraded from Catalina to Big Sur. I downgraded to Catalina, which solved the problem. I decided to give Monterey a try. I have the same problem again on Monterey. The workarounds (resizing, minimizing) work sometimes, but not all the time. It's ridiculous that Apple keeps ignoring this problem It's seems like they don't want anyone to use their products anymore. They might get their wish, if they're not careful.

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.

Same for me, with file dialogs, resizing the dialog also helps, but is not a solution.

I'm on a Apple M1 Max MacBook Pro running 12.2

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).

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!

I have the same issue too, no dialog boxes respond to mouse-clicks, in every app, although occasionally frenzied and repeated clicking finally works. This is on an iMac 2020 running Big Sur but also on my 2017 MacBook Pro running Catalina. SOOOOO annoying !! How this hasn't been fixed yet is truly mind-boggling !

No changes for me after update (11.2.3). Dialog boxes still aren't working or are working selectively.

I really can't believe it's not solved till now by Apple since it's such an obvious thing.

Minimizing a dialog box works f.ex. in Preferences for me, but as it was mentioned earlier - sometimes you can't minimize a box. Very annoying in Mail app when trying to add an attachment. Appears also in other 3rd party apps whenever a Finder dialog box pops out.

I have MBP 13" Touch Bar 2017

The resize solution works for me.

I had a problem with the reset dialog of gitk sometimes becoming non-responsive. It sometimes came good by closing gitk and opening it again, but that was far from reliable - the resizing trick seems to work much better, so thank you!

It's quite ridiculous. The loss of major (if seemingly simple) functionality. Keyboard shortcuts should work on dialog boxes.

Another thing they're doing is you used to be able to do cmd-s and just start typing. It would buffer your text so by the time the dialog window opened it would just spew out everything you'd been typing. Now it starts where you are at in the typing.

First why is there ANY delay in a dialog window box opening. Why do I have such a fast computer (M1) and yet it can't do such a simple thing like instantly open a save window? This isn't the 1990's.

Then it can't just save with the keyboard shortcut.

Now, half the time your dialog box field isn't selected, so you have to tab not once but 4-5 times to get to the field.

Then it doesn't even select the name right, like in photoshop. It selects the whole name, including the extension then doesn't put the extension on the end of the file, so it can't be uploaded to wordpress.

Does anybody else feel like apple's user interface design is actually devolving thanks to newbies coming along thinking they can "do things better?" Maybe it's true, maybe not, but what a pain. It's fundamental! Please fix this.

I can confirm too that this issue is still present in Monterey 12.2 with the M1 Macbook Pro.

For the System Settings, you have to minimize and reopen it from the dock every time you go to a different section.

Sadly, this doesn't work with the File Open / Save As dialogs, rendering essential apps unusable.

Any work around for this case?