Weird Sticky Mouse (Very complicated problem)

I'm having this same problem with a Magic Mouse. I bought one about a year ago (wasn't that when they first came out?) and it worked fine, but every now and then, when I got up in the morning and started working, I had troubles -- I finally realized the computer was behaving as if the left mouse button was being held down. It would select any text in a text window or select an area on the desktop.

At first this only seemed to happen when the computer had been asleep overnight or for a long time. That could be just coincidence, I'm not sure. Then I noticed it happening at other times. It was almost impossible, when this happened, to get it to stop. I experimented. I tried things like turning the mouse on and off, reconnecting -- whatever. Then one day I was fed up and pounded my hand down on the mouse, on the front part.

That was lucky -- it turned out THAT was the only thing that would ever break the "left mousebutton is stuck on down" issue. Well, after months and months of putting up with this, I finally ordered a new mouse (I wasn't able to figure out the problem until well out of warranty and at first, since the Magic Mouse is so different, thought I might be doing something wrong.)

I've had the new mouse for about 48 hours and I see the same problem happening with the new mouse. At least multiple clicks will clear it up with this mouse.

But I can verify this is a REAL problem and that I have either ended up with 2 bad mice or that the issue is NOT with the mouse.

I did not have this problem with my Mighty Mouse, but that was USB and the Magic Mice are Bluetooth, so my guess is that narrows it down to an issue with the bluetooth drivers or something in that area.

I'm sorry to see that it's been 2 months and I'm the first to reply to this, since I can verify it IS an issue.

I would like to hear from others with the same issue or from someone who has some idea what causes this and why only a few of us are having this issue.

I have just started getting this "sticky mouse" problem too, since I upgraded from 10.4.11 to the latest 10.6. I have also installed a few small apps since upgrading so it could, I guess, be one of them at fault. The mouse action (eg selection) freezes and in some cases can be dragged across the screen in a frozen state but you can't cancel it using the mouse buttons. I can only stop the problem using ESCAPE and then carry on working.

The mouse is unchanged (it's a Logitech USB wireless) and I've used it for a couple of years. I have several of the same mice and they function just fine. I re-installed the latest Logitech Control Centre, in case it needed an updated driver. That didn't make any difference.

The problem first showed when editing a file name in Finder, but happens in other places too now. I can't find any pattern to the fault just yet.

I would be very interested in anyone's ideas.

For some reason, I wasn't checking any utilities and just recently I found I'm using both Magic Prefs and Better Touch Tool.

At this point I haven't had time to figure out how to disable or remove Magic Prefs. I prefer Better Touch Tool, since it responds better and has more options and if, for some reason, it messes up, it's easy to restart by just clicking the icon in the menu bar and picking "Restart BTT."

Stopping BTT was easy, so I turned it off and am using Magic Prefs only for now. I don't seem to have the problem with this setup. When I get a chance, I will remove Magic Prefs and try ONLY BTT and see if it works fine alone.

I'll post the results.

What are the small apps you've installed?

This list could be long as I'm a sucker for apps! However listing ONLY the ones installed AFTER the upgrade and BEFORE the problem:
iWork-09, iLife-11, Vodafone Mobile Broadband utility (upgrade), DevonThink Personal, 2 add-ons for Firefox, Audio Hijack Pro, Fission and Sound Source (last 3 from Rogue Amoeba) -- none of which seem likely candidates.

However, I also installed MenuPop {free} which puts current app's menu at the point of the cursor. Now in truth I can't remember if the problem existed before this app or not (I need to test this - the problem is the sticky mouse only occurs every so often so it gets difficult to know if it's "fixed"). I will explore this over the next few days and report back.

Footnote to lovers of "MenuPop": I'm only highlighting this app because it is mouse related, no offense intended to a useful app!

I would think the only one that could be an issue would be MenuPop, and I'm going to have to take a look a that. I had a util like that for my Amiga, years ago, but never found one in the few years I was on Windows or the decade I was on Linux.

My thought, since it could be my issue, too, is that it could be several programs fighting over input, so do you have other mouse-oriented apps in stalled?

Ah that's a good question! I have an embarrassing number of apps on my system, however MOST are not usually running on a day-to-day basis. (I have used Fruit Menu to organise them for years). Apart from the Logitech app (the mouse is same make) I can't see anything else "mouse specific". I did briefly try "Menu Everywhere" (10 days ago) from the same stable as Menu Pop but it wasn't for me and I removed it. I have today removed iClip which no longer works in Snow Leopard but that's not really mouse-specific. Most of my daily work revolves around Adobe Creative Suite 4, and InDesign in particular.

Sorry I can't think of anything else. It is nearing midnight here in the UK so there will be a delay in further posts from me.

One final brief point:
I've just done a search for your Better Touch Tool and have found a post on their blog, dated 17 Dec, ( http://blog.boastr.net/?cat=4) briefly extracted below:

"Some people reported a problem where mouseclicks become stuck and so accidental drags etc. happen. I can’t reproduce this on my system but I want to fix it as soon as possible."

It doesn't answer MY problem of course as I haven't used the App.

It does solve my problem, but, as you say, not yours.

However, I would say this is a STRONG indication your issue is a program, somewhere along the way. I would guess (repeat, GUESS) that it's not MenuPop or other menu programs, but it could be. I would think it's something more directly connected to the mouse.

I've installed the latest version of BTT that included the fix for that bug to see if it works. It seems to, no trouble so far, but I can never tell what sets it off, or when it'll happen. Sometimes I go for a day without the issue at all.

But since we have different mice and since I've had it with two mice and can trace it to BTT, that makes me pretty darned sure it's software. Even more, I bet it depends on how some programs use certain subroutines in the OS.

I'm glad it looks as though your problem is fixed.

I switched off MenuPop yesterday and will test for 1-2 weeks to see if the mouse issue returns. I'll then switch it back on and do the same. I will report back when I can draw some useful conclusion.

Hi, I am new here and I have the same problem with the sticky mouse. Now, my question is: do you use PopChar? I don't know exactly, if it solved my problem, but when I quit PopChar, I got back the control over my mouse!

I will have to have a eye on that....

Best greetings! Reinhard

Oh, well ... the mouse jumps back to "sticky modus" as soon as I open my facebook-account with Firefox (version 3.6.13)

😟