Trackpad suddenly stops working

I have had this same problem, multiple times. The keyboard seems to work, but there is no click in the trackpad. The finger moves work to go to different windows/sessions, but you cannot click on anything.

However, I have only had to reboot once. I have never had to reset the SMC or NVRAM. What I do is close the laptop (BTW, it's a MacBook Pro 15" Touchbar 2016 and MacOS 10.13.3), reopen it...sometimes works, sometimes doesn't....then I use command tab to switch windows a few times....then tap the Touch Bar closest to the space bar and it seems to wake itself up. Give it a try...but it's a pain in the bum when it happens.

I shall give that a go.

Something interesting is that when this last occurred I restarted the computer via the terminal window (shutdown -r) and the problem persisted at boot up. I couldn’t click on my account upon booting to log in.

A physical switching off via the power button solved the problem.

It may be that the issue OP described is not the same as yours. I have both a 2016 MBPTB and a late 2013 MBPr -- one has the Force Trackpad and the other has a conventional trackpad. I only see the trackpad behavior you describe on the Force Trackpad, not the older one (both are running the same software).

There are several other posts about this and they all seem to have the Force Trackpad in common.

I find that a 3-finger tap/touch will return all trackpad functions to normal (until the next sleep/wake!).

I first saw this on the 2016 MBPTB in mid-December and filed a bug report (beta 10.13.3).

Before I found the 3-finger tap work-around, I was convinced it was a hardware issue and Apple Support actually told me to send the unit in for repair (I did, they bolted on $800 of new parts and returned it with the same issue -- it wasn't hardware).

Control-Alt-Delete is a chord specific to Microsoft Windows. I'd assumed this was OS X and not Windows, and that was a suggestion of using one of those individual keys — not a chord — to wake the system. It's been my experience that the trackpad — at least an external Magic Trackpad won't wake the system. If the system is awake and if the internal trackpad is not working, then there's either a problem that an SMC or NVRAM/PRAM reset might clear, or maybe a Safe Boot to clear caches and to test whether the trackpad works there followed by a normal reboot, or maybe there's add-on software — cache cleaners, anti-virus, anti-malware, performance-enhancements or related that may be interfering (disable those per the product-specific documentation, or post the output of Etrecheck here and somebody can have a look at the configuration), or there's a problem with the system hardware.

A chord is a series of keyboard keys pressed together — like in music.

Control-Alt-Delete is a chord that Windows uses commonly, and that OS X does not.

Alternatively, find somebody that's local that can help with this, or visit a local Apple Store and have a conversation with the folks there.

Your MacBook Pro is portable, so it can usually be transported to where somebody can help, which makes this easier.

Or maybe somebody else here can better describe the troubleshooting that's involved.

Did you try the SMC and NVRAm/PRAM reset suggested above?

Reset NVRAM/PRAM

Reset SMC

Worked for me. Thanks!

El Capitan 10.11.5

You are welcome.

I have exactly the same problem! Its not just the trackpad, but the keyboard, too. It never did this before, but I noticed it started happening around the same time as when I began connecting the laptop to an external display (with bluetooth mouse and keyboard). Lets hope a firmware update resolves this issue.

Hi Eddie,

i got the same probem with you. Is your problem solved?

Best wishes,

Furkan

They shut down using the power switch/button. You can also try  menu/Shut Down.

Whenever I reboot it works again, seems like a software issue to me (since the haptic feedback is software controlled).

Please boot into Safe Mode, and test. Safe Mode resets caches and related, and also disables kernel add-ons that can sometimes cause problems.

Do you by any change use Duet? (To use an iPad as a second screen)?