ball on mouse doesn't work

Over time, the mechanism underneath the ball collects minute amounts of oil from your skin and dust from the air. That's what makes the ball stick, or if there's too much dirt inside, it completely stops working.

Sometimes you can unstick the ball by doing the following:

• Unplug the mouse
• Turn the mouse upside down
• Rub the ball rapidly back & forth over a piece of clean white paper, preferably on top of a notepad so there is some padding underneath the paper. Press firmly but not too hard while you rub the mouse back & forth.
• Plug the mouse back in
• See if it works properly

I usually rub the ball back & forth and side-to-side, sometimes even in a circle. That usually clears it up.

But if there is too much dirt inside the mouse this may not work. In that case it is possible to take the mouse apart to manually clean the roller mechanism inside but you have to very carefully break the glue spots under the white trim ring around the base of the mouse. If you search 'clean mighty mouse' you can find instructions about how to do that, open the mouse and clean the rollers.

Try it anyway. There have been times that the ball on my mouse would only move in 1 direction!

But after trying the rub method, if the ball moves easily but there's still no reaction on the cursor, try plugging the mouse into a different USB port. If even that doesn't work then the mouse itself may have gone bad.

LMSMilford wrote:

Thank you Martin for your response. Actually, the ball does move; it isn't stuck. It just doen't make the lines of text scroll. However, I'll try your suggestions.

When I've had issues with dirty mouse rollers and mouse balls, there is no sensation in the way the ball moves or feels. It is all on-screen in the form of a cusror that is unresponsive, stuttering, jumping, or all three.

I found that cleaning only the ball on other ball-type mice did not always restore full function. The ball contacts small rollers inside its cavity to convey its motion to the electrical bits. It is usually the rollers that collect the most goop, and cause the issues. You have to directly access the rollers and use a piece of plastic to scrape off the accumulated crud. With both rollers ns the ball clean, mine always worked like new again,

On the Mighty Mouse, those are hard to access.

The Mighty Mouse was one of the more troublesome of Apple mice. Any current laser mouse will work just as well, and probably better.