rMBP 2015: Force Click is not working for look up and data detectors

Question

Aquarii Author

Level 1

6 points

rMBP 2015: Force Click is not working for look up and data detectors

Hi everyone,

I have my new rMBP 13" (2015) few days ago and noticed that Force Click is not working anymore on look up.

Here are my experiments and findings so far:

1) It only worked on the first day

2) I have "Force click with one finger" set for "Look up & data detectors". It still doesn't work. I switched to "Tap with three fingers" and the look up works fine.

3) I tried Force Click on other functions (eg: calendar, quicktime, dock, etc) all are working fine. This indicates that hardware is good.

4) I upgraded OS X to 10.10.3 and it does not work still.

I am totally stuck now and appreciate for any suggestion on what might have gone wrong. Thanks!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 17, 2015 2:50 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 3, 2016 1:50 PM in response to Aquarii

It works guys.

Initially I had the same observation as noted by jame gum. After trying for a while, I finally found that it really works.

1) The three finger tap is the easier one. It works by simply tapping three fingers.

2) The single finger force click is little tricky. To get it to work, you really need to press firmly. I mean really firm. When you start pressing it, there is a point when you get a slight haptic feedback and then you keep pressing. Its kind of a slow double click.

Just makes me wonder what kind of impact the firm click would have on the durability of the trackpad. For now I am alternating between the two and will probably will stick to one of them after a while.

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Answer 2

Apr 28, 2015 6:33 PM in response to Aquarii

Hi

I had the same problem but then I noticed something: On day 1, I was using the stock apps, including Safari. Later, I downloaded my desired apps such as Chrome. So I stopped using Safari as my default browser and the problem began. Just like you, the Lookup function worked when 'Tap with three fingers' was enabled, but not with the 'Force Touch with one finger' option. So then I went back to Safari to check if Chrome was the issue. And the Force Touch option worked.

In short, the Force Touch option is not yet compatible with 3rd party apps not supported by Apple.

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Answer 3

Aquarii Author

Level 1

6 points

Apr 28, 2015 7:03 PM in response to ThefunkyWolf

You are right ThefunckyWolf. I switched to Chrome not long after getting my Macbook. Now I try on Safari and it works as you mentioned.

However, thing puzzled me was during my troubleshooting, I compared both "force click" and "3-finger tap" by activating look up on the trackpad setting window and the result: 3-finger tap worked while force-click didn't (that's why I didn't try on Safari).

Now I think I have below conclusion after reading through posts on the web and getting help here. Hope this helps the rest hitting into same confusion as me. 🙂

- There are many reports on the web regarding "Look-up" activation method being changed from "force-click" to "3-finger tap". I hit this too therefore this might be the very first thing to check, and make sure "Force click and haptic feedback" box is checked.

- The scope of support to use Force click for look up is still small. It is NOT working on other 3rd party apps and even Mac native apps. From experiment so far, only Safari works. "3-finger tap" works everywhere.

Thanks again ThefunckyWolf!

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Answer 4

jame gum

Level 1

0 points

May 5, 2015 6:46 PM in response to Aquarii

Hello there

I'm not sure if it worked from day 1, but Force Click look up does not work for me either.

It does, however, almost work - both in Safari and some other 3rd party applications (e.g. iA Writer Pro).

What happens is the force clicked word highlights and a small transparent square window (about half the size of a desktop doc icon) appears briefly above the word - but then vanishes.

It's like a software bug causing the the lookup window load to fail when Force Click is used.

Hope this is fixed soon - but in the meantime I can live with 3 finger tap.

MBP13 (Retina early 2015) OS X 10.10.3

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Answer 5

Jun 16, 2015 9:46 PM in response to Aquarii

My lookup function is not working at all. It works when safari is forced closed and only for a few minutes.

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Answer 6

Aug 5, 2015 2:03 PM in response to jame gum

I got my rMBP13 today and I am facing the same issue with the Force Click. It works with "Tap with 3 fingers" setting, but not with "Force click with one finger" .. It looks like a software bug. Any idea when this bug will be fixed?

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Answer 7

Sep 14, 2015 5:41 PM in response to Aquarii

I had the same issue as well with all the same symptoms. It turns out the "Smooth Mouse" utility interferes with force click if you have it enabled for trackpad.

If you use Smooth Mouse, check on that setting and see if it helps you.

Hope that helps!

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Answer 8

Asif-S

Level 1

5 points

Oct 1, 2015 5:25 PM in response to Aquarii

SOLVED! (at least for me) I thought I had the the same problem, later I noticed if I press the trackpad really hard (harder than a click), it works.

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Answer 9

Oct 11, 2015 9:33 PM in response to Aquarii

Same problem. Doesn't even work in Safari for me. I think I got it to work once the first week. And yes, I can get it to work in a few apps (Apple maps zoom, for instance) so it's not a hardware thing.

Pretty underwhelmed in general with force click. I think I might have productively used force click maybe once in the last 3 months of owning the machine. In truth, if it only works a smallish percentage of the time you won't rely on it.

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