Trackpad gestures stop working randomly after monterey update

2020 M1 Pro - same issues. But my trackpad randomly won't click either. I should say that the trackpad clicks, but nothing happens. Tried the Dock fix, and it worked temporarily, but the cat came back.

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.

Yes it happens on my M1 MacBook Air (2020). After a few hours the gestures just stop working and I need to restart. I plan to downgrade to Big Sur until a permanent fix is found or the next MacOS is released. Very annoying to my workflow.

I'm facing this issue for a month while writing this.

I've updated it to 12.3.1 and after that I got started experiencing this issue. This thread is olf but this glitch is not got solved yet, very disaapointing.

I hope this will be fixed in next update, otherwise I'll rollback to the last release.

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.

It’s literally been YEARS for some of us here. I don’t know that they have any plans to fix this unfortunately. Or maybe they just aren’t able to and they just let it slide. As a very long time mac person. This one looks like my last Mac. You get too little for too much of an investment anymore. Sad.

Same issue here while using the Apple Magic Trackpad 2. The 2 finger swipe left to reveal notification center works. However, 3 finger horizontal swipe and 4 finger swipes do not work. Super frustrating and will be interested to see when Apple fixes this. It still hasn't been resolved in Monterey 12.4 and I'm wondering if it will ever.

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!

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!

This is the case with me as well. Also the trac pad has become incredibly over-sensitive, and resetting the parameters doesn't seem to help at all. Come on, Apple... Stop using us as a Beta-testing group and do your R&D before introducinng on the mass market. Like when Steve Jobs was in control.

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.

I have this issue with the Intel 16" too.

As well as not being able to see all programmes when I swipe 4 finger up, Finder in particular can be really hard to err...find at times. And lots of bugs in general. TouchBar changed how from working well to something I understand why folk dislike it. Touch button also doesn't OK things anymore, so tediously need to enter password instead. Transfer speeds via USB C is now USB2 speed and various dongle devices cause issues or don't work. Everything was fine in Catalina.

Never had an OSX as buggy as Monteray before.

Super helpful; worked immediately!

FWIW, I get very tired of Apple support insisting on the longest most-time consuming methods to fix, e.g., reinstall OS or resetting NVRAM etc. There is usually a simple and easy fix readily available. I've noticed the former is an increasingly more frequent solution [sic] provided by Apple Tech Support — chat or phone — and only requesting upper tier support help finds a simple 1,2,3 done solution to bugs and issues. This is the 3rd time this month that hours have been wasted when the 5 second solution is there.

Thanks again.

It sounds like you need to rebuild the Spotlight index. Here's the official documentation from Apple:

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

!!! Still present in 12.4. Please, raise the issue here in Feedback Assistant. Thank you.