MacBook Pro late 2016 three finger drag issue

I agree with the report submitted by user “viral.net". I think it captures the problem with the most clear description.

That said, I have been experiencing what many other users are reporting. Three finger drag seems to be improving after being used for a few weeks. This could be due to us as the users learning, but it does seem like the situation may be improving beyond that.

However even with the improvement, the situation is still terrible and absolutely needs fixing.

I certainly won't be returning mine. Too late now. Hopefully things will get better. But if it means I need to learn different behavior for using the MacBook Pro w/ Touchbar and using my older MacBook Pro 15 w/ Retina display and then using the Magic Touchpad that is going to be a challenge and most disappointing. Pushing this back on the customer as a "user problem" is bad form on the part of Apple. If they had warned us that would be one thing. But that was not the case.

I will need to live with mine but I'm having others wait until the next rev of the hardware and then wait a bit longer to see if issues like this surface. (BTW, we all use the 3-finger drag extensively.)

I'm having the same issue with my late 2016 MacBook Pro (13") and so does my brother with his 15" model.

This bothers me a lot as I'm used to using the three finger drag all the time on my iMac's Magic Trackpad where it works perfectly well.

I'm wondering whether this issue is specific to late 2016 MBPs or occurs on all Force Touch equipped machines.

I found out that it's more reliable if you point your fingers more vertically then drag them, it feels more smooth that way. I'm using Macbook pro 2016 no touchbar.

I never had this issue before with my 2012 15" macbook pro (non-retina). Hope Apple will fix this soon with their software updates.

Putting the fingers closer together hasn't made a difference for me. I had hoped 10.12.3 might include a fix. But, sadly, no. 10.12.3 did not fix this issues. It was not even mentioned. I believe that the problem may result from the new trackpad hardware and Apple is afraid to admit there is an issue as fixing it would require hardware changes. Major fail on the part of Apple. BTW, I now need to carry a Magic Trackpad (which works as always showing that the software works) with me along with the dongles. I have lost faith in the "it just works" slogan of Apple and I have lost faith in their willingness to make it right.

For me, 10.12.3 seems to have fixed the issue.

The three-finger-drag still doesn't always work perfectly, not even sure if that's any different on older trackpads, but they've definitely done something with the latest update as the three-finger-drag is recognized way morereliably now and the issue of it being mistaken for a two-finger-click hasn't since occurred to me at all.

MrUNIMOG wrote:

For me, 10.12.3 seems to have fixed the issue.

The three-finger-drag still doesn't always work perfectly, not even sure if that's any different on older trackpads, but they've definitely done something with the latest update as the three-finger-drag is recognized way morereliably now and the issue of it being mistaken for a two-finger-click hasn't since occurred to me at all.

Update:

After having used 10.12.3 for some days now, it seems like although three finger drag has gotten a lot more reliable, it still performs worse than on older trackpads and definitely needs improvement.

Especially in Safari, a three finger drag when trying to select text is often mistaken for a two finger swipe, taking me to the previous web page which can be really annoying.

Hi There,

just filed a Bug Report with Apple

Here is an Excerpt

I am a heavy user of three finger drags which is one feature which enables people to work REALLY fast on a Mac. After enabling it I immediately experienced something odd. About 20% of all drag attempts did nothing. I am very very experienced with three finger dragging and promoting and teaching to all I know and everyone could not live without that today... The past 6 years I don't I can recall having any dropouts. However, the new MBP 2016 utterly destroys this feeling... It behaves highly erratic especially when angling the Finger Palms slightly... Which BTW is the normal resting position of any trackpad user. This is really noticeable. I thought it was just my machine so I went to the big Apple Store in Hamburg, Germany and ALL your MBP 2016 suffer from the exact same issue. So unless you had a VERY bad delivery on A LOT of MBPs you have a serious issue with the Trackpad Sensors or hopefully the software thresholding those...

Expected Results:

99.99999 Track Record as in all your older Laptops and Trackpads.

Actual Results:

20% of all Three Finger drags are utterly failing.

This is especially worrisome when selecting text with a three finger drag...

The weird thing is that after the initial three finger drag attempt if you keep your fingers on the pad and keep moving them after about 3-5 seconds it 'Catch Up". Perhaps this has to with the fact that since macOS Sierra NSLog is spitting out between 3 and 200 logs PER SECOND to the console...

Without the ability of Three Finger drag I would NOT NEVER EVER in my life dream of using a Trackpad. Too slow and I have so many years still to live and I don't want to spend MORE time than I have to with this device...

Right now I am using my 2014 MBP as it has a trackpad that works.

And this 4100 EURO device is just sitting here collecting dust due to this issue and to the issue that since 8 Weeks Apple has been holding off delivery of TB3 to TB2 Adapters to all Hamburg, Germany Apple Dealers. At least that is what they claim when calling them. Because Apple's own stores have them.

Anyway, I believe this issue with the tracki' will be resorted the next few weeks. If not, I am returning this device and buying a used Early 2016.

For me the latest updates fixed the issue 100%. I'm using three finger drag all the time. No matter how fancy I put my fingers on the trackpad, 0-360 degree angle, one two palms, dragging while typing: It never fails a single time! Now that I tried every possible strange way, I found that when

It's strange that others still have issues. I'm using a 13 inch TouchBar MBP 2016

I have the latest version and it fixed nothing. I now need to carry an Apple Trackpad everywhere I go so as to be able to reliably use 3-finger drag. So very disappointed. I have a 13", 500GB drive, 16MB RAM, i7

Been plying with the past 3 hours and at first it seems random. But being I developer I always open the Console Application to check what is going on with the system. If LOTs of logs and I mean like 20 per Second which is not unusual since the introduction of Swift - unfortunately. In OS X just launch the Mail app and select a message and you can start seeing the Console literally burning thru' the logs. And I am on a 1 Day Old Operating system cleanly delivery from Apple... (I DID a clean install after noticing those issues just to make sure, no remedy).

So I was trying to notice if the console threw an error DURING the Three Finger Drag Miss. But since Mail was destroying the Log with messages I could not see fast enough to notice - and at the point I had Three Finger Drops all the time more or less.. So I quit mail to rid the logs and after quitting it, I was no longer able to reproduce the incident. I had 100% Three Finger Hit Tests. So this thing is definitely related to Apps feeling the need to log 20-50 messages per second to the Console.

Just so you get an Idea... On an Imaging App supposed to run realtime when moving i.e. a Contrast Slider adding just ONE NSLog inside the Draw Function to log it to the console will cap the performance by 33%. The more logs you have on your system the less performance there is for you to work with... And in the case of MBP 2016 / its Event Tracking is disturbed by those...

Anyone writing an app which needs to log 30 times per second to a console all day long should carefully rethink the entire design!

I surely did not pay 4.1K only to have a computer sit there and write logs all the time just cuz it CAN ;-)

The Apps are writing the Logs from within their code. So unless you don't run them there is no way for you to stop them. Even if you were to kill the console.

They write Logs as part of Error and Exception Handling and actually should not log all the time. Unless you are writing and concepting the app and doing debugging during programming. Some apps run into the millions of lines of code over the years and many developer either forget to disable them (rare cases) use them as error handling. That is why a lot of them will ask you to collect a log and send them when reporting a bug. That will of course enable them to find the culprit more easily but at the cost at YOU their user having LESS performance. Which IMO is a no no. But many apps are being deliberately released without testing so that a broad user base can do that for them. This is not the fine Gentleman Style of treating loyal clients. But it has become a habit and it is effective. You gain a million beta testers without even wanting to test they have an app crash and fell compelled to write up a bug report along with a nice log cueing the developer in on HOW to remove it....

Will there ever be a Clean Console ? NO / That is what it is there for. But the way this poor thing is being raped today is just outside the reach of good human judgement and IMO should be policed. After all, I don't like being able to use Final Cut Pro Realtime - HALF THE TIME - just so that some developer who was too low on budget could super fly the console and kill MY performance which I paid 4k+ for !

While I could replicate your findings about Mail spamming the console with logs, I doubt that's related to the three-finger-drag issue, as for me quitting Mail and everything else, thereby having only a low frequency of logs in the console, didn't help anything.

EDIT: While the issue doesn't entirely go away after quitting Mail (and Safari), it seems like three-finger-drag does work a bit more reliably when those apps aren't running. It still isn't recognized perfectly all the time and still gets mistaken for a two-finger-swipe (i.e. scrolling) sometimes, but with Mail or Safari running, it's a lot worse.

You might actually be onto something there.

Anything doing excess logging to the console will be able to trigger this incident.

Just so happens that Mail and Safari are loggers by nature. But anything causing sub-second and thus heavy logging will spark this..

The Three Finger Drag Miss is just one symptom helping visualise how much performance is swallowed by excessive logging. I.e. Once Mail is at it, logging 20 Per Second to the console, Mission-COntrol's otherwise VERY Smooth animation (Happening on the GPU) becomes jerky and very slow as if it were done on the CPU. Final Cut Pro and any other Application dealing with fairly large images will reach a point of being very slow.

I literally have not been able to have open Mail and Safari since the OS X 10.10 during high performance computing with Images, Videos etc. I have reported it many times. And I am asked to send - well - the logs so that Engineering can have a look at it. But it is still the same. OS X is very very very fast - 50% of the time using it. When you get those 50% positive moments aren't clear.

But one thing remains a fact, every time the computer becomes "slow" the console is very very very busy.

Now that this excessive logging is interfering with Apple"s newest laptop - perhaps and hopefully they will have a serious look at policing all the logging going on. And just like with the Sandbox - ban - any app which caps performance on the hardware for which users pay a LOT of money 😀

MortenJamesCarlsen wrote:

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Now that this excessive logging is interfering with Apple"s newest laptop - perhaps and hopefully they will have a serious look at policing all the logging going on. And just like with the Sandbox - ban - any app which caps performance on the hardware for which users pay a LOT of money 😀

Let's hope so!