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Mail stops responding to mouse clicks in Lion

Since installing Mac OS 10.7 Lion, I am experiencing an intermittent problem in Mail. After running for a period of time (I have noticed this as short as ~15 minutes after launch, but usually 2-3 hours), Mail stops responding to mouse clicks in its window. I have noticed the following conditions:


- Mail gets stuck on whatever message was being displayed. Clicks on other messages in the message list or other mailboxes are not reconized. It is impossible to change focus on mail items with the mouse.

- Mouse clicks on the toolbar buttons or the buttons in the new capsule between the message headers and message body are not recognized.

- Mouse focus is recognized: e.g., moving mouse pointer over message headers or the capsule buttons will cause them to highlight or change color, but clicking has no effect.

- Keyboard still works, so pressing up or down arrow will bring up the next message in the message list and the preview pane changes to display the new message.

- Keyboard still works to activate Mail commands, i.e., all command key combos still work. Delete key will delete the selected message.

- Mouse still works for the menubar and menu commands. In full screen mode, moving the mouse to the top of the screen displays the menu, and all menus can be clicked on, activated, and selected. All menu commands work properly.

- If in full-screen mode, clicking on the full-screen toggle button in the top-right of window will return Mail to windowed-mode, but clicking on the same button while in windowed-mode will not return Mail to full-screen mode; the click is ignored.

- Quitting Mail and restarting makes the problem go away.


This happens on both my machines that have Lion:

1. Late 2007 21" iMac, 4GB RAM

2. Mid 2009 15" MacBook Pro, 8GB RAM


For all the above, you can substitute trackpad for mouse. The iMac uses Magic Mouse and the MacBook Pro uses either built-in trackpad or Magic Trackpad. The problems above happen with all pointing devices.


In my usual Mail setup I have 7 Mail Bundles active, but I have removed all Mail Bundles and the problem still occurs. For reference, the 7 Mail Bundles usually installed are:


Attachment Tamer.mailbundle

MailActOn.mailbundle

MailFollowUp.mailbundle

MailRecent.mailbundle

MailTags.mailbundle

DEVONMailConduit-SnowLeopard.mailbundle

OmniMailMessageServiceEnabler.mailbundle



Has anyone else seen this behavior? Does anyone have any ideas on possible cause or suggestions to resolve?


Thank you,

Drew

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Aug 5, 2011 11:17 AM

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70 replies

Aug 5, 2011 12:06 PM in response to Mela1987

So you have these problems when not in full-screen mode? Interesting. I can reproduce the problem but only when mail starts up in full-screen mode from a boot (i.e., mail starts at login in full-screen mode). The only exception for me is your problem:


- Mouse focus is recognized: e.g., moving mouse pointer over message headers or the capsule buttons will cause them to highlight or change color, but clicking has no effect.


For me, when I have the problem, the mouse is not recognized when clicking mail message headers or any any other button in the app window. Everything is dead is so far as the mouse is concerned (can still use the keyboard to an extent).


I've haven't seen these issues, though, when mail starts in normal mode even when mail is open all day long.

Aug 9, 2011 8:31 AM in response to Mela1987

I am still having this problem, but have not done anything further to troubleshoot it. I can't imaging why resetting the PRAM would help this. That's a bogus, last-resort suggestion when tech support doesn't know what else to say.


I figure this is a bug in Mail or a conflict with some other app, pref panel, extension, plug-in, etc. Hopefully it will be fixed in 10.7.1.

Aug 10, 2011 7:25 AM in response to Mela1987

Now it seems that this bug is not limited to Mail. I just experienced the same behavior in Safari. Safari was in full-screen mode and all of a sudden stopped responding to mouse clicks. It was working fine and I switched away to another app for a second, then when I came back to Safari, the mouse wouldn't work to click anything in the Safari window. It would work on menu items, but not on links, the Safari toolbar, etc.


Has anyone else seen this behavior in Safari too?

Aug 10, 2011 12:36 PM in response to rickyfc

So far, luckily, I have had it happen in Safari just once. But it definitely was exactly the same set of symptoms as in Mail. Quitting and relaunching Safari cleared up the problem, just as it does in Mail.


The machine on which the problem happened with Safari is an iMac 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo (Mid 2007) with 4GB RAM. It has a Magic Mouse using standard Apple driver.

Aug 11, 2011 1:18 PM in response to Mela1987

It happens to me when my mac wakes up, it happens in different apps, xcode, Word, VMware fusion, mail, chrome. I can move my mouse, command tab to other programs. The easist way to get it reconized is to put my mac back to sleep and wake it back up (close the lid, get cup of coffee, open lid). I feel like such the PC user. This just started since I loaded Lion two days ago, and it happens 3 or more times a day.

Aug 11, 2011 1:48 PM in response to Mela1987

This is happening to me too, in multiple programs. Sleep and then wake solves it sometimes, though it sometimes wakes in a weird mouse state, like the button is held down.


When exhibiting this problem it doesn't matter what mouse I attach (magic mouse, trackpad, wacom tablet mouse, old school apple usb mouse, etc) to the machine, a 2 x 2.8 Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 20 GB of ram.


Please Apple. This is a real productivity buster and it is happening multiple times a day.

Aug 19, 2011 6:07 AM in response to JohnOMalley

I completely uninstalled MagicPrefs 3 days ago and haven't had any problems since. One user's experience doesn't necessarily prove anything though. Someone else experiencing this problem willing to give it a try? Please post your results back to the community. Note: Disabling MagicPrefs didn't seem to make a difference. It was a full uninstall that I think corrected the issue for me. Instructions here.


I hope this helps someone else.

Mail stops responding to mouse clicks in Lion

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