Trackpad gestures stop working randomly after monterey update

I want to remind people that for many, simply starting the built-in screen saver instantly resolves the problem, and you can set up a “hot corner” where just moving the mouse pointer into that corner of the screen (eg lower left) starts the screen saver.

Open Activity Monitor, click "Dock" and hit "Quit" button.

Restores functionality for me without need to reboot.

I've created a simple Big Sur Shortcut that runs the "killall Dock" command. You can put it in your menubar for quick access.

[Link Edited by Moderator]

Open Terminal and run:

killall Dock

You don't have to restart pc.

Same issue on my new Mac Studio since last Monterey update. Ran the 'killall dock' in terminal and everything came back to normal.

kamui545's "killall Dock" terminal input worked for me.

Hello sivaprashantK,

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities. We've reviewed your question and it looks like you are having an issue with the trackpad on your Mac after updating to macOS Monterey. It's understandable that you'd want this resolved, so allow us to assist with that. Let’s start out by testing to see when this behavior occurs. We understand that this is an intermittent issue, but the following testing will be very beneficial to help narrow down this issue.

First, put your Mac into safe mode and test. Booting into safe mode will disable any startup and login items from automatically opening, which can help us to isolate the source of the issue further. When you do this, you’ll see some unusual behavior from the display; this is to be expected. Please follow the steps in this article: How to use safe mode on your Mac. 

Next, let's see if this behavior persists in a second user account on your Mac. If you have a second account, please log into that and see how it works. If you don't have one you can use, please follow these steps to make a test account that can be deleted later: Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac.

Additionally, please let us know if you notice this behavior when charging, after going into or exiting from Sleep Mode, when using certain apps, etc. Anything you can identify that is consistent would be helpful.

If you have follow-up questions, please let us know. We're here for you. Have a fantastic day!

I'm experiencing similar issues with my 16-inch (M1 Pro) on Monterey 12.2

I was able to work around the issue by setting up hot corners for screensaver, after launching my screensaver (even for a few seconds) my gestures work again.

I hope for a fix soon.

Turning the screensaver on or off solves it for me on my 2021 MacBook Pro M1 Max, I only get the freeze up of gestures when the processor is really doing some work not just general low power activities. I first encountered the problem while using Handbrake to change video formats and reduce file sizes, which really had the processor humming. I later tried doing some exports on Final Cut Pro but the gestures never froze up while doing that. I had not installed "Rosetta" at the time I was doing this.

killall Dock in the terminal worked for me, and maybe what SurfinTheLight says above works. I totally agree with you that it's deplorable that we have to do this for a thing that should have been fixed a long time ago

For me the problem is solved after I go in and out of a screen saver. So I set up a "hot corner" for a screensaver.

(System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Screen Saver tab > Hot Corners)

and that's how I can turn on the screensaver from any location (and anyway it's quite useful :)

Maybe it will help you too.

Killall Dock from terminal fixes it.

I just had the problem again today. Same solution worked again - stopping the Dock process in Activity Monitor.

Original Magic Trackpad

M1 Max Mac Studio (64 GB)

Monterey 12.6

This happened to me twice this week, and only a restart fixes it. Reapplying the toggles in Mission Control doesn't do anything. I hope they fix this in the soonest update, as I heavily use the gestures in my workflow.