I have a mid 2010 mac pro running Mac 10.10.2 on power up the mouse will move the pointer but machine will not respond to clicks and so I cannot login.

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Pete Hyde Author

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I have a mid 2010 mac pro running Mac 10.10.2 on power up the mouse will move the pointer but machine will not respond to clicks and so I cannot login.

Mac Pro (Mid 2010)

2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

12 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC

500 GbSSD main drive

2X2TB Hitachi internal drive

1X3gb Toshiba internal drive

Yesterday a dropbox icon became attached to my pointer ( I have no idea how this happened) and the pointer would move but not respond to mouse clicks. I restarted and while the pointer would move it would still not respond to mouse clicks so I was unable to log in. I restarted in safe mode, logged in OK and restarted. Everthing OK all day. This morning I started up and I could not make the mouse respond to clicks in normal or safe mode. I restarted in Apple Hardware Test. This did not seem to work as I expected but eventually I was able to login and disable my password which seems to work OK for now. The other odd thing is that on startup both the CD drive bays open and close. The machine is working but I would like to try and resove the problem as i would like to secure it with a password. apart from this initial problem at start-up, now that I am logged in the machine seems to work fine. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Pete

Posted on Mar 29, 2015 2:27 AM

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Answer 1

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lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Mar 29, 2015 2:32 AM in response to Pete Hyde

What mouse are you using?

Have you tried another mouse, preferable a wired mouse?

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Answer 2

Pete Hyde Author

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Mar 29, 2015 7:31 AM in response to lllaass

Hi lllaass,

Yup. I usually use a Magic Mouse but I swapped to a USB wired mouse and it didn't work. I think it is some problem at the OS level, corrupted file perhaps, but this is a bit outside my comfort zone.

Pete

sent from my Macbook

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Answer 3

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Mar 29, 2015 9:08 AM in response to Pete Hyde

Does it happen in Safe mode?

OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?

Try resetting the SMC and PRAM

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

About NVRAM and PRAM

Try creating a new user and log into that user and see if you have the problem.

https://kb.iu.edu/d/akmk

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Answer 4

Pete Hyde Author

Level 1

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Mar 29, 2015 1:15 PM in response to lllaass

Hi

Well the plot sort of thiickens. I deleted my guest account and created a second admin account. This now works but so does my original account.....sometimes. I disabled the login password. Now when it starts up the login image won't respond to the mouse click but the cancel button at the bottom of the screen will. It all seems very arbitrary and inconsistent. I do seem to be able to get into the machine now so I'm going to stop mithering about it. Thanks very much for your suggestions especially the one about creating a new account which has helped. I think that the problem is that the account login image doesn't seem to consistently understand that it has to do something when it is clicked. Intermittent faults...who needs them? I will persevere.

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Mar 29, 2015 2:16 PM in response to Pete Hyde

The first thing I would do is try a backup clone, which should always be handy, and/or try a new fresh install.

Can't hurt to use DU from another drive to TRIM your SSD and repair the directory.

A Safe Boot to rebuilt the system cache files and folders.

It sounds like adding and deleting just moved files to use different areas of the drive and create new files so I would expect there to be file system errors.

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