Jumpy erratic cursor/arrow - Moves & Selects without touching

Well, my advices were not meant to be permanent solutions to this strange problem - just a way to keep the head above the water (to keep the machine running) until you know why the problem occurred in the first place and how to handle it. It would be interesting to know how long it will last for you, simalev.

But I also start to believe that this problem might have something to do with moisture - at least I know that my trackpad got a bit wet as I used wet wipes to clean the whole computer after being used by my children. Maybe that was a bad idea...

I saw that someone in this thread suggested rice, how many of you have tried it and, the most importand question, did it work? I will sure go for it when I don't need to use the computer for about 24 hours. 😉

i had this problem for 3 days, now the trackpad is working fine. i read different posts and tried almost every advice )) but nothing helped me. I never used wet wipes to clean the trackpad. I think if you discharge the battery completely or pull it for 10 seconds out, and it doesn't help, then may be your trackpad is really damaged by water.

So my advices are:

1. discharge or pull the battery for 10 seconds out

2. if it doesn't help, reinstall completely the operating system and clear PRAM, then do the first step.

3. Use only original power supply

4. If it doesn't help, replace your trackpad with new one 🙂

i hope it helps...

Hi,

After looking through the posts, and having the same recent jumpy erratic trackpad issues everyone else reported, I turned off Bluetooth. Everything immediately calmed down and I'm back to normal. I suggest you at least try this first. Hope this can help someone. bc

Still searching for the definitive answer--thought I had it, but not.

My MacBook Pro is brand new, just about 10 days ago. From the beginning its track pad has been extremely jumpy. There hasn't been any moisture to affect my track pad.

Does this mean I have to have the track pad replaced at the Apple Store?

Same problem with MacPro. Only seems to happen in certain types application windows. Definitely happens in a browser window but not in a finder window.

Having the problem about 3 days now, i have trackpad 2 years, replaced by warrenty to a new one one year ago cause of clicker came out. So now no warrenty and this is SUCK!

I tried everyhing in this post and much more-of course, didn't help. I evev talked to apple, thinking maybe they'll be nice and will tell there premium reseller i bought it from (I'm from israel) to give me a new one cause of this problem, they said it's there decision (Which means that they will not give me a new trackpad 99.9% sure). I'm on imac by the way.

The sad thing is that i am seeing threads about this problem since started looking, the opened from 2011 (!!) to today, which means that's a serious problem and apple does nothing, and more, apple told me on the phone they heard nothing abou this HUGE problem! I was shocked, cause of so many threads in there forums and much more .. So i 99.99% sure i have a useless trackpad (not if the reseller will decide to replace it to me for being nice, which they will not).

This is really annoying and i don't want to pay 69$ for a new trackpad, when it's even same generation.

And, hey apple? How about "Magic" Trackpad 2 with normal clicker & no crazy annying problems?

Im really NOT used to this from apple-this is my second mac, i'm using my third ipad and second ipohne and have an apple keyboard and they are all great products that survive a LOT of time. I have an ipod touch 2g from 2009 that works great.

So, what the heck? What can i do.

I'm on newest 10.8.5, of course.

I had the same issue this weekend, so I contacted the Apple Support through Chat. I performed some troubleshooting procedures the guy requested me to do but the problem continued. It was really frustrating. He recommended me to take it to a Genius Bar. I decided to disable temporarily the trackpad and connect an external mouse to be able to work. In any case I continued googling for more info about the issue and found that pressing the four corners of the trackpad worked in some cases so I did it and enabled the trackpad back. It totally solved it. At least it seems so. It worths a try.

I had the same issue for a few days, making my life extremely frustrating. One easy trick solved it for me in 5 min. Disk Utility - First Aid - Verify Disk Permissions - Repair Disk Permissions. Now everything works perfectly fine.

i'm trying this right now, i REALLY hope it works. my trackpad has done this for about 2 weeks and it is making me miserable.

I'll try that. Sound weird.

Tried already-didn't work ..

Trying again ..

same problem started this morning after an update but mine is fixed now! I just pressed top two corners of trackpad!!

If you see the trackpad closely, the two front corners are slightly sunk than the top after so many years of use. I believe this causes the distraction. Its worth a try.

I will try that. Tried 4 corners already and did not help ..

I had the same sort of issues as others are describing here. Had to use a trackball instead of the trackpad.

With nothing to lose I tried the moisture fix (covered the trackpad with dry (uncooked) rice and left it for a day). When I switched it back on the trackpad was back to behaving normally.

It's still early days yet, only an hour since I switched back on but fingers crossed.