TrackPad physical click not working after upgrade to Mountain Lion

The trackpad physical click is adjustable, and sometimes needs adjusting. Also, the physical click becoming shallower, then eventually not working at all, can be a symptom of the battery, which is behind it on many laptop models, physically swelling up as it nears the end of its life and pressing against the trackpad from behind.

A swelling battery should be removed/replaced ASAP before it damages anything else.

I just had the same issue. I have a 13" MBP Mid 2009 (MacbookPro5,5). The strange part was that when I started up in BootCamp Win7, the trackpad worked normal. At that point I thought it was a software issue with ML (10.8.2). This post led me to adjusting the screws and it has been working fine so far. I simply made a small counter-clockwise turn of the screws that are located beneath the trackpad on the bottom aluminum casing.

I had this problem with my first macbook pro 3 days after I bought in it 2009, running leopard. Trackpad physical just stopped working. Brought it to genius bar. They replaced trackpad, but it didnt help. So they just gave me a brand-new computer and it wasn't a big deal because i only had the old one for 3 days anyway. Now, 4 years later, the same problem again. Randomely just happenned one day. I upgraded to lion a few days agop, but the trackpad issue has been going on a few weeks. Percussive maintanence works (hitting the trackpa with your fist or palm as hard as you can without breaking it). It's still weird though. This is a bad MAC problem that apple doesn't recognise, nor do they want to do anything about it. Basically, live with it.

I recently had the same thing happen. I updated and the next day the track pad started working erractically. I tried everything to fix it and nothing worked, until I thoroughly cleaned the trackpad.....

To fix it, I turned the computer off, used a cleaner for my eyeglasses and made sure I cleaned the trackpad really well. I used a tip of a needle to clean out the edges of the trackpad, as it was dirtier than I thought. Maybe something about the update makes the trackpad more sensitive to dirt. In other threads I read not to use hand lotions before using trackpad and to keep the trackpad as clean as possible.

This completely solved the problem.

I found that if you press the keyboard surface to the left of the trackpad, the click will work normally. It's because the keyboard seems to be warped.

I found out that I had a Bluetooth mouse that was connecting to the laptop. The mouse was in a drawer and the buttons were pressed in while other objects were on top of it, causing my trackpad not to function properly...speechless.

mjw303 : I'm raising my hat to you, thanks a lot, that's it.ℹ The mouse was already clicked in it's tight pocket!.😁

if you are lucky, the reason is simply that mouse is already clicked (in a tight pocket, or an objet is on top of it). When you (and I) release it from that click, everything went to normal 🙂

Percussive maintanence works (hitting the trackpa with your fist or palm as hard as you can without breaking it).

Erm, I'd go easy on that, it will cause head crashes if the hard disc is running (not if it's an SSD, though, obviously...) and may cause other damage. The battery is under the trackpad. When they reach the end of their life, LiPo batteries tend to swell. This may be the cause of your trackpad issues. If it is, it won't get better - eventually it will distort the entire casing and effectively write off the laptop.

Apple consider the battery in unibody MacBook Pros to be non-user-replaceable, partly because LiPo batteries can be hazardous (see below) but replacements are available, for all that, and Apple themselves can replace it (presumably at some cost.)

LiPo batteries need to be treated with considerable respect - smacking them hard is certainly not recommended. Punctures, impact, incorrect charging or installation can all lead to fairly serious fire or explosion. (Search on YouTube for examples of LiPo battery explosions in various laptops, radio-controlled models, etc.)

I found that if you press the keyboard surface to the left of the trackpad, the click will work normally. It's because the keyboard seems to be warped.

See my other reply re: battery swelling. Any warping, I would be carefully checking the state of the battery.

I recently just reformatted my Macbook pro and my trackpad stopped working after I logged in, I could see the mouse arrow moving around but I could not select by pressing the pad. What eventually worked for me was 1st: Pressing hard on the trackpad and applying pressure all across the surface. 2nd: After pressing on the trackpad surface for a while I found out if I pressed hard enough I could select but it was a pain pressing the **** out of the pad just to make a selection so I went to "Preferences" and then selected "trackpad" and then selected "Tap to click" and it started to work like it use to, but I ended up having to use 3 fingers to select and drag..which was annoying as ****. So I went to "Preferences/Universal Access/Trackpad Options/ and select "Dragging". That worked.

Also try: Shutting down computer, plug it in, then start pressing Shift/control/option while pressing the power up button for 15 seconds and when you let go the light on your power cord connected to your Mac should go to green then back to orange, then power up your mac again.

Also try: Command+Option+P+R while you power up your mac and wait til it chime 2wice ...then start up again.

Hopes this helps....someone, I know how it is 😠!

not a mountain lion issue. have a macbook pro snow leopard and having the issue except i have not read the one mine is having.

the clock error came up stating my clock needs to be reset because it as an error due to dec 31 2008 or something.

have not tried the bluetooth mouse solution yet. will in the morning.

Haha this was the case for me as well: I had put my bluetooth mouse in a tight pocket in my bag, without turning it off.

Thanks mjw303, my tackpad just started to ignore physical "clicks", and your suggestion worked perfectly!

My trackpad on my MBP would allow movement of the cursor but would not recognise any click. I tried rebooting, rebooting and pressing SHIFT+OPTION+CTRL, and trying clicking quite hard (but didn't want to damage it), using a bluetooth magic mouse - all to no avail.

Then I slimply closed the lid (screen) over the keyboard and opened it again - everything working fine !?!