Trackpad gestures stop working randomly after monterey update

Having this issue, too (i.e. trackpad gestures will randomly stop working).

@sivaprashantK's solution of quitting "Dock" process from Activity Monitor resolves without needing to reboot, works for me, too.

Get this fixed, Apple!

System: Monterey 12.0.1 | MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) | M1 Max | 64GB

*edit*

Oops, I didn't realize other people provided this answer already.

I found a post on superuser.com, that you can run in the terminal, that restarts the trackpad without having to restart the entire computer.

killall Dock

This worked for me. After executing this command in the terminal, the swipe functionality returned to my trackpad. I have the 16 inch Macbook Pro with the M1 Pro chip.

source:

https://superuser.com/questions/301222/how-to-reset-restart-an-internal-macbook-trackpad-driver

I might have a fix you can try. After talking with some Apple Support people, they recommended I do a reinstall of OS Monterey. So far, that seems to have worked to fix the issue. I'm still holding my breath to be honest, but it's worth a shot. It was very easy to do the reinstall too. Here's a link to an article on how to do it (and make sure to back up your computer beforehand, of course): How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

For context of my situation, when I switched to my 2021 MacBook Pro 14-inch with an M1 chip, I was coming from a 2015 MacBook Pro that was operating on Big Sur. There may have been a glitch that occurred when transferring files because of the difference in OS.

If I do end up having an issue with my trackpad gestures (or the F3 button or hot corners, as they were all connected for me) I will post an update on this thread. But for right now, the problem seems fixed.

I’m not sure if these new posters are even reading the other posts, so I’ll say this again:

When you encounter the issue, just activate the screen saver for an instant and the issue will go away. I set up my screen saver to activate using the lower left hot corner.

It seems as if this is the only “for sure” solution. None of the “quitting the dock” solutions, or logging out, worked for me. (Although restarting DID)

Apple Support frequently recommends reinstalling MacOS — even when there’s no evidence that will solve the problem.

MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021), running latest macOS 12.3 and issue persists. I have found that most of the suggestions did not help previously mentioned. With less than an hour of uptime, I find the issue starts back up again. This behavior is particularly bad in Chrome when browsing long pages. Approx every 4th or 5th two finger swipe would not respond.

One thing I did find that helps is to turn off Lower Power mode under System Pref > Battery. So far, this has been the only thing that made a difference.

I see this frequently on my 2020 M1 macbook pro. I also had this same issue on my 2017 macbook (not pro), so it's not an Apple silicon issue. Both laptops were on Monterey when it started, so I believe it is a Monterey issue. Opening activity monitor and stopping the "dock" task is a good temporary fix without needing to restart. Hopefully this will be fixed at some point, it just happened to me twice this week!

I've got a brand new 16" MBP and 3-finger swipes all stopped working about 15 minutes ago. The "killall Dock" "solution" worked for me as well, so if Apple were, say, a company that allowed user-reports/updates of bugs we could report this, clearly a long-standing bug and clearly tied to the Dock process.

Of note, other gestures (like page back and forth with 2-finger swipes) keep working.

Same issue here.

Running "killall Dock" in the terminal fix the problem without having to reboot / logout.

Yeah, this seems to be a really large bug with macOS Monterey version 12.0.1 that affects Apple Silicon machines.

It is also happening on my brand new 16" MacBook Pro (M1 Pro) as well.

Several times throughout the day, all of the trackpad gestures that are set underneath the "More Gestures" panel (in the Trackpad System Preference) stop working altogether.

For example, I've got Mission Control set to "Swipe up with 3 fingers". This will work for about an hour, and then it suddenly stops working altogether.

The only solution is to log out and log back in again.

Same thing with all of the other Trackpad options that are on the "More Gestures" panel. For example, I've got App Expose set to "Swipe down with 3 fingers", and that also stops working at the exact same time as all the other gestures stop working.

Hopefully Apple will fix this soon, or else I may need to return this new laptop because this laptop can't be downgraded to macOS 11.

Be sure to report this bug to Apple on their macOS feedback website here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

I found this article that helped me restart the Dock, which fixed my problem.

https://www.howtogeek.com/363857/how-to-fix-your-mac%E2%80%99s-dock-when-it-gets-stuck/

"Restarting the Dock will usually fix problems you’re having with it. You can do it in Terminal by typing (or copying and pasting) this command and then hitting Enter:

killall Dock

The Dock should restart itself automatically."

I get the same issue. Recently, I've noticed it occurs after I make a screenshot (cmd+shift+4).

To solve it I need to: System Preferences > Trackpad > Scroll & Zoom > Toggle zoom in or out off / switch tab / switch back / toggle zoom in or out on.

It's annoying.

My work around is setting up a hot corner that activates my screensaver. I don’t lose all my trackpad functions when mine locks up, only a couple of them (like being able to swipe to different desktops). If I use the hot corner and activate screensaver even for a split second, it unlocks my trackpad and it works normally until it happens again. Others have used this work around as well. So strange. Some days, my trackpad never locks up, other days, it can happen every hour or two. This is the buggiest Mac I’ve ever used (and I’ve been on a Mac since OS6). Unfortunately, if they don’t solve these multiple issues (and they haven’t apparently for several years now) this will be my last Mac. Not worth this much money for the aggravation.

Multi-touch gestures stopped working for me too. I'm using an original Magic Trackpad with an M1 Max Mac Studio (64GB) and Monterey 12.5.1.

Quitting the Dock process in Activity Monitor resolved the problem for me too.

Thanks for the helpful post!

I have a work Imac 27 that is running Intel, and a Laptop which is the M1 MB Pro 13.3".

Both are using newest software version, and both have a Magic Mouse that are exclusive to each machine. The problem is the same on both machines, suddenly you cannot scroll in browser-pages with the swipe motion.

So this is BOTH machines, and with TWO different mice that have worked find until now, and now suddenly have the same error. So I think I can say pretty clearly that this is not an Apple Silicon error, or a problem with the pointing device - but a software error in the latest OS (Running 12.0.1).

My go-to fix is rather simple, which is to power off the mouse, and power it on again. Always works.