Level 1

43 points

Magic Trackpad Erratic Movement

Just bought and installed Magic Trackpad on my iMac. Paired the trackpad, installed the software with Software Update. But then the cursor movement has been erratic. The cursor jumps on the screen randomly and "taps" itself. Fortunately I can still use my Magic Mouse so I have to disconnect the trackpad.

Anyone with a similar experience? Any solution?

Unibody MacBook Pro 2.53GHz/iMac Core2Duo 2.66GHz/iPhone 3Gs 32GB, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 31, 2010 7:33 AM

141 replies

oddsare

Level 1

0 points

Feb 17, 2011 10:28 PM in response to BatterseaDog

Same issues here... got my first unit replaced today. 2nd unit started acting up. After reading through this thread I started playing around in my Airport utility and managed to really get it to act up as I was playing around. I have one Airport Express for WiFi and a 2nd one setup for wireless printing. When I unplugged both Express units the erratic behavior immediately stopped. I plugged them in one at a time, WiFi first, all is good. Then the 2nd printer express unit and it is working fine right now...

I'm sure it is a matter of time before it acts up again, but I as well seem to lean towards wireless interference... there we go, as I am writing this, it is back... disappointing.

oddsare

Level 1

0 points

Feb 20, 2011 8:44 PM in response to oddsare

after extensive testing on my part, I have concluded that it is cellphone interference. My local Apple store is researching to see if it is possibly the bluetooth unit in my early Mac Pro. If my iPhone comes with 6-8 feet of the Magic Track pad, then forget it. Especially while in call or while sending/receiving text messages. Keeping my phone behind me in the room seems to keep things from getting glitchy. Might return the Trackpad and try the Magic Mouse to see if I have better luck...

Feb 26, 2011 7:15 AM in response to Colin Lai

+1 for me with this problem. I tried all the suggestions on this thread and others: restarting bluetooth, turning off possibly interfering WiFi and BT devices, reinstalling drivers, re-pairing ... nothing worked.

I scheduled a visit to the genius bar, documented my efforts to fix the problem, and pointed them to this thread. Of course, my magic trackpad worked perfectly at the store! But they were very professional and replaced my trackpad with a new one.

That's what fixed it. Nothing but perfection from the new magic trackpad. I suspect that this is a now-resolved HW issue.

rpr_rpr

Level 1

0 points

Feb 28, 2011 11:31 AM in response to Colin Lai

I've the same problem for months... Trackpad has been cornered a lot of time... But today I've tried, and...

The solution is cleaning the trackpad's active surface with a wet paper

Mar 11, 2011 7:35 AM in response to Colin Lai

So im guessing there is no fix for this yet then.

It's definately NOT a trackpad problem. my mum and wife both have the same issue with their magic mice....I haven't experienced this with my magic mouse as it stays in my work bag and i use it RARELY in the office, but i do have this problem with my trackpad and apple wireless keyboard, i have since changed the keyboard to a wired version.

So heres what I'm running:

Airport extreme dual band (latest model)

2.4ghz for the mac mini & old iphone

5ghz for apple tv, iphone 4 and ipad as well as my macbook pro (mid 2010 core i7 and my wifes late 09 macbook)

I have reloaded the mbp running a clean OS (updated) without any positive effect.

I cant rule out interference, but I think this is a problem with the bluetooth stack. Generally a couple of reboots will fix my issue for a while, but considering how much we pay for this stuff Apple should **** well pay attention and resolve this issue.

Mar 20, 2011 11:29 AM in response to universalerror

I'm not sure if this will help everyone, but I have manually set the channels for 2.4ghz and 5ghz freq's on the apple AE router and the problem is resolved.

May 24, 2011 9:49 PM in response to Colin Lai

I have this same problem. It's so bad I had to ditch the Magic Trackpad and go back to using the mouse. I wish Apple would get this fixed!

Jun 20, 2011 8:32 AM in response to Colin Lai

Extremely annoying issue!

Exact same problem here. Is absolutely surely related to interference - in my case the interference is caused by WIFI network traffic. At merely ~500 K/S network traffic the trackpad begins to have trouble and at a few megabytes per second it becomes completely unusable. Every (and that's 4+) Mac owners that I know personally have this very same problem.

Using a network cable corrects the issue for me but Jesus H. Christ, Apple, you need to wake up and fix this! It is driving us absolutely nuts that we can't rely on our input device during TimeMachine backups, for example. It's insanely irritating to have to choose between no WIFI traffic or no trackpad.

Setting channels on the AE has no effect for me. Disabling "use wide channels" has no effect whatsoever either.

MacBook pro 13" core2 + AirportExtreme

PS: we used to make jokes about "Your mouse has moved - Windows must restart" - but the sad thing is that now, with the Magic Trackpad, this isn't a joke at all 😟

Jun 22, 2011 9:41 AM in response to Claus the CodeMonkey

This is now happening to me multiple times a day. Very annoying.

I find that if I move the trackpad closer to my Mac Pro, the problem goes away temporarily. But I'm right handed (my Mac Pro is at the left foot of my desk) so when I move it back to the right of my keyboard, the problem occurs again soon enough.

When the trackpad is to the right of my keyboard, it's only about 3 feet away so should not be a problem, but it is.

Also, my Airport Extreme is on the desk as well so if it's a wifi issue, Apple needs to update the trackpad firmware or the Airport Extreme firmware to fix the interference problem!

This issue continues to be a complete failure on Apple's part.

Jun 23, 2011 9:23 AM in response to mediahound

Update, I unplugged the USB receiver and charger cables for my Logitech wireless mouse and have not experience the problem since. It's only been a few hours though but I'm hopeful!

Jun 23, 2011 2:26 PM in response to mediahound

Scratch that, it's doing it again!

Very frustrating!

Jun 24, 2011 9:58 AM in response to mediahound

I've been testing this like crazy and playing with the settings in Aiport Utility for my Airport Extreme since I read that this may interfere with the Magic Trackpad.

I've tried numerous different channels as well as Automatic, which didn't help.

In Wireless Options, I had the multicast rate set to low. I changed that to Medium and have not experienced the erratic trackpad movement again since I did that.

I will post again if the problem crops up again.

g h m

Level 1

0 points

Jul 2, 2011 1:49 AM in response to mediahound

Exactly the same problems here. My MBP connected to a 27" display and using wireless keyboard and magic trackpad. Both are behaving eratic, the keyboard also isn't working right. Like it's stuck or something. What a shame for Apple with those expensive things.

Jul 10, 2011 2:11 PM in response to Colin Lai

I think this IS a hardware problem. I tried everything they suggested after 4 calls to Apple The trackpad fails even I when running off the system disk. I'm sending it in for a hardware repair.

kevin.k

Level 1

0 points

Aug 30, 2011 12:58 PM in response to Colin Lai

I think I've encountered and solved a very similar problem. Erratic Magic Trackpad behavior, cured briefly by restarting Bluetooth. In my case, it was in Windows, but I *think* the problem applies to OS X too. I describe it in more detail at http://www.kleinfelter.com/node/264

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Magic Trackpad Erratic Movement