Mouse and Touchpad not clicking after sleep - hard restart needed

Question

Level 1

18 points

Mouse and Touchpad not clicking after sleep - hard restart needed

Hi,

I have just updated to El Capitan and every time I put the mac to sleep, the touchpad and mouse clicks do not work anymore. Gestures do. I need to perform a hard restart every time I wake up the Mac.

I am using an external monitor, mouse and keyboard, all from non-Apple brands, such as Logitech and Dell. However I would like to stress the fact that even the built-in touchpad does not click.

This is a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)

Posted on Oct 7, 2015 1:09 AM

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Answer 1

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Oct 7, 2015 7:26 AM in response to Veronese

Hi Veronese,

Thank you for continuing to be an active member of the Apple Support Communities!

There are two main troubleshooting steps I suggest completing to begin troubleshooting your unresponsive mouse and touchpad after waking from sleep. These steps are resetting the NVRAM and the SMC on your Mac and instructions for each can be found in the articles below.

How to Reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

We understand that issues that arise after a software update can be frustrating, but I want to assure you that we are here to help!

We would like to hear back from you if this information was helpful in resolving the unresponsive mouse and keyboard or to provide extra information if the issue continues. We look forward as well to your continued participation in the Apple Support Communities! :)

Best!

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Answer 2

Veronese Author

Level 1

18 points

Oct 19, 2015 11:15 PM in response to AppleJoe

Unfortunately none of these standard steps has helped.

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Answer 3

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Oct 20, 2015 6:10 AM in response to Veronese

Hello Veronese,

If resetting the NVRAM and SMC did not help to resolve the issue, the next article I would suggest reading over and working through is located below.

Intel-based Mac notebooks: Troubleshooting unresponsive trackpad issues - Apple Support

If the issue continues after testing your trackpad as described in the article above, it may be necessary to have your computer evaluated at an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. For more information on this process, please refer to the next link.

Apple - Support - Service Answer Center

Cheers!

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Answer 4

jstanec

Level 1

4 points

Oct 20, 2015 7:45 PM in response to AppleJoe

I am having the same problem as well..... ive reset the pram but this still seems to be occuring

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Answer 5

Veronese Author

Level 1

18 points

Oct 21, 2015 7:48 AM in response to AppleJoe

This is referring to a problem with hardware. This is not a hardware problem as it started occurring with El Capitan. I am observing that the problem might be related to waking up the Mac after sleep when an external monitor is disconnected in the sleep state. For example when you take the laptop home from work. I also observed that the mouse activity sometimes returns after the computer waits for a few minutes. Very strange.

A hard reset doesn't help the issue as the Mac restarts the faulty processes upon login, so you're back to being stuck. I deinstalled all utilities that I suspected to interfere with the ability to click but to no avail.

Please forward this problem to the developers to have it registered as a bug in the OS.

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Answer 6

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,258 points

Oct 21, 2015 7:55 AM in response to Veronese

I noticed this last night on my MBP 2011. First it would not startup. I disconnected battery and adapter and waited a few minutes, when I started up again it went into a B&W finder screen that did not respond, but eventually the B&W screen changed my desktop solid color. Wakeup from that changed state was about 5 minutes before keyboard became responsive and trackpad worked. The lights on the keyboard were also off for the duration of the hang, I have a FW800 drive connected that gets power from the logic board, no other devices are connected.

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Answer 7

serge543

Level 1

0 points

Oct 21, 2015 11:54 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

I do have the same problem to with my MBP retina, 15 inches mid 2015 since I loaded El Capitan. I would be really surprised if all of us had an hardware problem at the same time while loading the OS.

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Answer 8

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,258 points

Oct 21, 2015 12:21 PM in response to serge543

I'm not suggesting you do but I've remedied a few users with touchpad tracking and glitching problems with the method. If it does not fix a thing a least you have a clean trackpad (insert improved OS 10.11.1 Emoji here when download completes two days from now.)

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Answer 9

Veronese Author

Level 1

18 points

Oct 22, 2015 5:52 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

Sure it's great that you're trying to help. I think, however that we need to explore other options that are El Capitan specific. Just to add on what I found out yesterday. When I connect my Wacom Intuos Pro tablet, I might be able to continue working and manage to shut down the computer. However, killing all Wacom-labeled processes does not reactivate the TouchPad so the tablet doesn't seem to be the problem.

It is very frustrating that the MacOS interface cannot be operated by keys by the way. The accessibility design prevents me to troubleshoot further because I get locked in without a functioning mouse. Tab cannot be used to move between buttons and so on. MacOS is worse than websites in this respect.

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Answer 10

Oct 24, 2015 10:00 AM in response to Veronese

I have a mid 2014 MBP 13" Retina - recently upgraded to El Capitan and am frequently unable to move the mouse or type and am forced to do a power-reset after sleep.

This problem did occur prior to El Capitan but has gotten much worse since.

At work I use:

-a Logitech Unify adapter for a K750 keyboard.

-a second display via mini-DVI

-a magic mouse via bluetooth

When I shutdown at work, I first remove the usb and then the display and wait for all windows to reappear on my laptop before I close the lid. I've found this decreases the frequency of display issues related to sleeping with an external display.

I was hoping the recent update to 10.11.1 would help, but just had my first crash before finding this thread... I wish this could be resolved as it is really ***** to not trust your work in sleep mode...

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Answer 11

RSacks

Level 1

8 points

Oct 25, 2015 11:04 AM in response to Koochiching

Hi,

I had no issue before upgrading to El Capitan. It started immediately. I am using nothing other than a bluetooth mouse. Nothing plugged in. If the computer sleeps long enough to drop to the login screen the mouse and keyboard don't respond and I am forced to hold the power button until it reboots.

I do use VMWare Fusion 7, which others have reported issues with. I have tried suspending the VM and still have the issue. I will try shutting it down completely and maybe even upgrading to 8.

Specs:

OS X El Capitan Version 10.11
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.7 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBP101.00EE.B09
SMC Version (system): 2.3f36
Serial Number (system): C02KN63LFFT1
Hardware UUID: 1E44A918-06A0-5C57-B242-9FDF5B5DC6FE

Another thread: El Capitan Frozen After Sleep

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Answer 12

Oct 27, 2015 3:27 AM in response to Veronese

Completely agree with Veronese,

I'm having exactly the same problem and it is not referred to HW issues.

Please add it on El Capitan's bug list.

Regards

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Answer 13

Veronese Author

Level 1

18 points

Oct 27, 2015 7:00 AM in response to Koochiching

This is pretty consistent to the behaviour I experience. It has to do something with sleep, the Mac going to the login screen. Weirdly, in my case a hard restart does not help anymore and the clicking is possible after some time without any apparent reason. This can last anywhere from 5 minutes to a half an hour. Nobody at my company can identify the problem, however we are two people experiencing it. At first I thought it might be related to leaving a known network environment and waking up in a new network, however this doesn't seem to be always the case. Also, it happens even without an external monitor having been connected during a session. It's hard to debug. Any help from Apple besides the usual knowledge base stuff?

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Answer 14

Oct 27, 2015 9:11 AM in response to RSacks

I upgraded to VMWare 8.1Pro and so far so good... It has only been 1 day though :-)

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Answer 15

Veronese Author

Level 1

18 points

Oct 27, 2015 10:06 AM in response to Veronese

OK, we're getting closer. Now the problem occurred without going to sleep at all! However I noticed that what happens is that the mouse is somehow invisibly crashed when dragging a window around as if I grabbed the top bar of a window. The mouse button is therefore acting as permanently clicked, thus allowing gestures but no clicks. Additionally the dock animation no longer magnifies the icons. Something is definitely crashed there as well.

This is clearly a window management bug, a feature that was changed extensively in El Capitan. This needs to be escalated immediately as it completely breaks the system!

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