Cursor jumps around

Agreed. This is my 4th MacBook and first one with this problem. I am on the verge of throwing in the towel and getting a non-Apple. This is slaughtering my productivity. I disabled the force-touch but still having the same problem. May try taping paper over top of trackpad as one commenter suggested. Ridiculous.

Lol, laughing through the tears. Your text here looks exactly like mine - Frankenwords created when the cursor jumps and I'm tying so fast several letters get added before I notice.

So, I took my laptop in and they replaced the whole top part including battery. Got it back and... within an hour, happened again. And several times since. I do go sometimes go several days without it, then I'll have two in quick succession like you do.

What's really frustrating is that of course there were no detailed notes on the repair -- whether they actually found anything wrong, whether this is in fact an ongoing problem - and the "geniuses" were all just "I only work here, don't know what they did remotely". So no sense of whether I should go through this again, which I'm not really inclined to do, don't want to put my laptop through another repair and I also really need it now, heading into an intense school semester (professor). But I've got only 4 months left on my warranty, so I'm really struggling with whether I should try again while I have the (free) opportunity.

Really this lack of guidance and feedback is what's most frustrating.

I'm on a 2015 MacBook Pro 13" retina; pre-touchbar. I bought it new in January, though an older model. You?

My escape key is nowhere near my pinkie... I've been trying to observe how I type in case I hit something and make this problem entirely myself, but I have yet to observe anything and anyway I was on an older but same size Mac for years without a problem, so can't imagine its my technique. Maybe the mouse pad is more sensitive to the balls of my thumbs? My husband has same model though, I worked on his no problem...

Again some guidance on all this would really be invaluable.

Its stressful.

That *****. I would get the manager at the store, and try to get a new one, although it's not clear what the timeline is for you within the warranty period. I would also consider writing a review on the website if you bought it online. That may get some reaction. I also used my old Air, which, apart from battery and heating issues, still chugs along. They know at Apple that something is going on, but they don't communicate much to their people. If you can get someone to video you typing, and insist that the store uploads the video to the repair facility, that may help.

I agree, this is totally ridiculous. I've been on MacPro's since they first came out and have never experienced this problem before. I do now - on their latest model. Very frustrating, idiotic, and very very disappointing.

The trackpad is just too large on the newer MBPs; it would be great if there were some kind of software adjustment where you can decrease the size (have it ignore touches outside a designated area) of the responsive portion of the trackpad.

I think all of the apple support solutions are a crock. Why do I not experience this problem on my 2 YO HP notebook? At this moment I'm typing on my early 2013 MBP 15 Retina with OS 10.13.3 and none of the usual recommendations are helpful. My early 2015 MBP 13 Retina running the same OS also exhibits the jumpy cursor, but my 2-year old HP notebook is absolutely solid, as is my iMac with bluetooth keyboard and magic mouse but no trackpad. It's beyond irritating, especially as I'm one who looks at the keyboard rather the screen and when I lookup I see an awful mess. I had to make two corrections in this paragraph alone, not just jumpy cursor, but untyped characters that appear in my text (not adjacent to typed characters).

If I need to go to safe mode to ensure there's no third party software interference, that's an apple design problem.

I have this problem as well, and it is infuriating. 2016 15" MBP, Sierra 10.12.6. I tried covering the right side of the trackpad (had to layer gaffer's tape and foil a couple layers deep to get it to stop picking up touch on that part), but the problem persists.

Also--I disabled tap-to-click, yet tap still does click. Is that control in system prefs broken?

Apple--any suggestions? Reading through this thread, I don't see a lot of reliable fixes for this. It is a serious productivity-denter. On average it happens every couple of minutes.

I had the same thing, and I went to the Genius Bar, hardware checked out ok, so they restored my High Sierra. I played with it a bit there, and it seemed better. Now, when I was posting here on Apple, as before, I was righting, and all of a sudden, my writing is in the subject line! Not touching the Trackpad. I'm going to ask for a new machine.

I’ve implemented every solution mentioned in this thread and resetting the SMC and NVRAM are the only actions that achieve positive results and even that is temporary. I’m not a ham-handed oaf. Given the number of complaints concerning this issue, this is clearly an Apple design or hardware problem. Most of us know Apple is loathe to acknowledge a flaw and take corrective action unless forced to do so by the marketplace, so I expect Apple to ignore it and attribute our complaints to those of merely disgruntled customers they can do without. I’m not a fanboy zealot. I’m a user and I’ve had enough of overpriced and underperforming Macbooks. I’ve had enough bending to Apple’s rules when they should be bending to the customers instead of decided it knows better than we what we need. I, for one, am walking.

I agreed to have it sent out to be checked. I previously had it checked at the store and they also restored the OS. This time I had a young lady who was basically blowing me off so I asked for a supervisor. So we’ll see.

When I originally called Apple they behaved as you described, so I went to the Genius Bar and the guy was super helpful and did his best, and told me to come back if it recurred. The manager today was also helpful, after I told him that I could not work with his “ genius” underling. That’s all I want, a good faith effort, and no condescending blame the customer BS.

I tried changing the click sensitivity to "firm"...it may have reduced the problem a bit but hasn't eliminated it.

An odd thing about this is that if I deliberately touch the trackpad with the heel of my hand (or fingers for that matter) in a way that is imitative of an accidental touch, I cannot reproduce the problem. The cursor doesn't jump. So I think this might be more than just the trackpad being overly sensitive. Plus it only ever happens when I'm typing, usually when I'm typing pretty fast (which just makes it more frustrating since I have more text to back out of wherever it landed).

Apple....are you listening?

Ah yes, the shotgun approach. That's what they do when they're completely clueless. One simple question: If it's always the user's fault, why do windows OS laptops/notebooks not manifest the same problems? Do we transform into butterfingers when using our macbooks after spending some time with our windows counterparts? This is an apple OS or hardware design flaw.

I guess. I think in person, you have a better chance of directing the narrative. Holy crap, it just happened now again!

I'm not even near the trackpad. Ha ha they wasted all that money. I am losing my cursor as I am typing. It seems to be worst here for some reason. I'm going to make a video for them, I think. Had to reinsert the cursor about 10 times

to finish this note. 😢

I have been using laptop last few days, not that much, but I'm back here to see if the problem recurs, as it did on June 5, when I got the computer back from Apple. Seems OK now, but I'm using Chrome. Will try with Safari, just to be sure.