Magic Trackpad gone wild

Has anyone seen a Magic Trackpad go wild?
It seems to be OK all morning then last two days around now all of a sudden it just seems to scroll over and click on everything on my desktop so fast I cannot really see what is happening. Applications launching etc. like crazy. I do not think it is inteference. If I turn it off or take it way out in the garage the iMac settles down. It has been a bit be humid down here.
When the trackpad goes wild I battery-up a standby magic mouse to do my work. After awhile I can power the magic trackpad back up or go out retrieve it from the garage and it seems ok.

Again, If I understand the technology correctly these devices can be sensitive to humidity. I am 99% sure mine became very sensitive. They run on the electronic principle of capacitance. If you have ever been to Las Vegas, which is really dry, you will be shocked by the static electricity. The other side of the coin is humidity.
Notice if you leave mosturizer on your hands or if they are not completely dry any of these devices can act weird. I could see how the they could go bad - or become more sensitive. Capacitors tend to be the weak link in lots of electronics.
I took mine back to the Apple Store and the new one is just fine. Humidity or not.

Similar Messages

MacBookPro cursor/trackpad gone wild?!

I've got an older (2006) MacBookPro (model A1211). It's been a great workhorse machine. Until recently. Suddenly, for no reason I can determine, my cursor jumps all over the page when Im typing. If emails, 5 or 6 new windows will suddenly open, or the cursor backtracks into the text and I end up overwriting previous text, or whole sections will suddenly be highlighted and - if I don't catch it - deleted. I'll type several lines and then "wham" it's all gone and the cursor has returned to the starting point and my text is gone. Or it will jump down into my signature. This happens no matter the program, i.e. email, facebook, MS word - whatever I'm typing in.
The only thing I can correlate this to is pressure around he trackpad. If I type with my wrists arched and my arms above the machine, it seems to work OK. BUT, if I type as normal with my wrists resting on the machine either side of the trackpad it's anyone's guess what will happen. Took it to a local iDoctors and got hit with a $39 "diagnostic fee" and they never even opened the machine up. They just suggested buying a new keyboard for $150.
Anyone else experience this? (Oh, the iDoctor said newer MBP's have adjustable track pads that could solve this but as mine is not adjustable that's why I need a new keyboard?)

Shut down your computer and pull out the battery. Check to see if the battery is swollen. I had a similar issue (cursor selecting items unoontrolably). The battery was slightly swollen which was pushing up on the trackpad thereby engaging the selector.

After pairing in Bootcamp, magic trackpad does not work

after pairing in Bootcamp, magic trackpad a) does not control cursor and b) does not persist after closing Bluetooth devides dialog.
Summary of Problem:
Magic Trackpad is found and paired, but does not control the mouse.
When you shut the Bluetooth devices and reopen (or reboot and reopen), the device is not listed.
Detials of problem:
Bootcamp 3.1 (i cannot find a later one) Windows XP all updates, All Apple Software Updates (to bootcamp and mac os x) installed, Magic Trackpad driver download and installed.
Control Panel, Bluetooth Devices, Add - it detectes the magic track pad (ie track pad blinking, click add) everytime
- It asks about a pass code, I have tried it without a pass code and with automatically Generate Passcode; does this setting matter?
In bluetooth devides, the track pad shows with "Auto Generated passkey" when that is the option selected
Found new hardware comes up, Apple Wireless Trackpad, everything looks fine.
- In Bluetooth Devices, it shows the trackpad wiht "no passkey", even when I told it to automatically generate one.
The track pad does not control the cursor.
Close Bluetooth Devices and reopen it, or reboot and reopen Bluetooth devices, and the track pad is gone.
Rebooting does not change the outcome of above.
I have gone to device manager and tried to update the two (apple & microsoft) Bluetooth drivers with the update button, it says I have the most current.
I do not see how to tell if the Magic Trackpad driver is installed, so I tried installing it again. It does appear to be listed under HID in device manager.
I have done a lot of googling, wasted a lot of time, if I cannot get it to work, I will return it to the apple store.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
bob

Bob, cannot help directly but I am having a similar problem on my MacBook Pro with Windows 7 Pro. Pretty much the same symptoms except my trackpad is not always recognized - it seems I have to click it to get Bluetooth to see it. Windows claims to have seen it OK on one occasion and installed the drivers, asked for a reboot etc. but the TrackPad still does not respond.
Works OK on the Mac side although it is not recognized as a separate Bluetooth trackpad which can be configured differently from the built-in. I wonder if this might be a clue?
I have installed the patch and tried a bunch of other things. Seems like Apple has some work to do sorting out the bugs on both the Mac and Windows side with this device. Pity because its an excellent piece of kit otherwise!

Magic Trackpad no pinch in Safari 6/10.8?

I like how on my 2011 MBP I can pinch in Safari 6 to get the Tab Expose. I tried it with my Magic Trackpad on my iMac, also running Safari 6 and 10.8 but nothing happens. Is this not supported?

ya I'm aware of the shortcut keys. Been using a mac since they came out. She is used to interaction with the mouse, hence the specific question as to where the X has gone.

Magic Trackpad and Lion

I just upgraded to Lion and also bought a magic trackpad, i knew i had to install the magic trackpad and multitouch update but did'nt know that i had to before upgrading to Lion, now that i have Lion the trackpad update says that it doesn't support Lion. Is there gonna be a new update or may be i didn't download the right one but can't find any other,

I was facing the same problem with my iMac late 2008! Magic trackpad wouldn't recognize 4 fingers gesture to enter in mission control in the vertical, but changed between desktops using 4 fingers gesture in the horizontal! Besides that, magic trackpad wouldn't let me drag icons or drag windows to move them around! I tryed doing what Tommie expleined and it worked! Both issues were solved! Thanks!

Magic Trackpad Frustrations

I bought a Magic Trackpad this past weekend hoping to replicate the wonderful experiences I have with my MBP trackpad on my 24" iMac. Unfortunately, not all has gone well.
I downloaded the 'Magic Trackpad and Multi-Touch Trackpad Update 1.0' as recommended by the packaging on the Trackpad. Then I upgraded to 10.6.5. So far, so good. When I go into the 'Trackpad' area of system preferences and click on 'Set up Trackpad' and turn on the Trackpad it's detected. As soon as I click 'Continue' I get a translucent mouse icon that says 'Connection Lost'. I've tried system updates, restarts, etc, but nothing seems to work. I keep getting the 'Connection Lost' message before I can continue with set up.
I can USE the trackpad, but only for the cursor - no movies show up in the right hand side of the pane of the trackpad preferences and none of the gestures work
Any thoughts?

You didn't set up your trackpad correctly is what it sounds like.
Try this,
Open System Preferences-Bluetooth-then make sure both boxes at the top are checked (On and Discoverable) then click Set Up New Device and let the it find your MTP.
You should also have the Trackpad Preferences in your System Preferences. If you don't after the MTP has been discovered and installed run Software Update and it should download and install.
If you not having luck do both a SMC and PRAM reset using the following instructions:
_SMC RESET_
• Shut down the computer.
• Unplug the computer's power cord and all other peripherals
• Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
• Release the power button.
• Attach the computers power cable.
• Press the power button to turn on the computer.
_PRAM RESET_
• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
• Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
• Release the keys.
If for some reason these instructions don't work, simply pick up the telephone and call AppleCare they can walk you through doing the installation.

Gnome 3.2 - Bluetooth - Magic Trackpad autoconnect problem

Hi everyone!
I recently bought an Apple Magic Trackpad and still am trying to get it working properly. Here is the thing. First of all: once it is working it does its job until I reboot. The functionality persists over suspending for several days.
But as soon as I have got to do a reboot everything is hard to get in place. At first I had problems connecting my trackpad at all after a reboot via blueman. Sometimes the whole machine would freeze after trying to connect my trackpad with my dongle. Often I have got to plug it out and back in to get it working several times and some wild clicking in blueman to connect to the input-service of the trackpad.
Now I found out something rather strange. When I keep the dongle out of my machine while booting and until I have my keyring unlocked and the plug it in, the trackpad connects within a second and everything is workin flawlessly. So what is the deal over here? Is there any way I can make my machine use the dongle right from start without having got to plug the dongle in and out at every weekly reboot?
I already tried the hints in the wiki for auto-connecting a device but this rendered my trackpad useless and the pc wasn't connecting at all.
Thanks in advance for any advice!

Mm, I suppose it could be. I'm using
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 3300 Graphics (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Device 0217
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
Memory at fe9f0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Memory at fe800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
Kernel modules: fglrx, radeon
on this machine (lspci -v from my linux mint installation running gnome 2.*). it didn't have a problem with the open source drivers on gnome 3.0, nor fglrx on gnome 2.* and kde4 works great to. strange ...
i'll try out some stuff from testing.
Last edited by edta (2011-10-04 09:11:50)

Magic trackpad question

I posted this question in another section of this site and didnt get a response so I thought Id put it in another section and maybe Ill get a response this time. Basically, my problem is after my computer goes to sleep and I click a key to wake it up my arrow is frozen and wont move, Ive checked the battery power in my trackpad and my keyboard and they both have plenty of battery power and it shows that my trackpad is connected onscreen yet my arrow still wont move. I have to mess with turning my trackpad off and on and have to turn my computer off and on again as I have no way of clicking boxes because the arrow wont move. This has just started happening in the past 2 or 3 days and I havent done anything out of the ordinary. It finally comes around and starts working but I would like it to work instantly after I click a key to wake my computer up like it used to do for years before this started happening. Could anyone help me with this and tell me why this may be happening and what I can do to fix it? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Bluetooth and 802.11b/g (sometimes n) WiFi 2.4GHz frequences. Also on some Macs the WiFi and Bluetooth antennas are either shared or very close to each other.
So you can have interference from 2.4GHz WiFi. You can also have interference from 2.4GHz cordless phones (yours or your close neighbors), 2.4GHz baby monitors (yours or your close neighbors), microwave ovens (which also use 2.4GHz frequencies).
As an experiment, when they happens again, turn off your Mac's WiFi (WiFi menu -> Turn Wi-Fi Off. See if your Magic Trackpad will connect. Then turn WiFi back on.
If you have the option of use 802.11n 5GHz only WiFi in your home, give that a try (I understand that many handheld devices often only have 2.4GHz WiFi support, so this might ONLY be an experiment).
You could try the suggestions in the following article
<http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475598/mac-os-x/os-x-mavericks--fixing-wir eless-keyboard-mouse-connections.html>
You could try deleting
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
reboot your Mac
Pair all your bluetooth devcies again.
Wild idea, maybe AirDrop is causing problem (not my best idea, so do not assume it will be of any use).
<http://www.tuaw.com/2014/11/25/heres-the-root-cause-and-a-workaround-for-ios-8-a nd-yosemite-wi>
Skip the iOS beginning of the article and go to the Mac OS X portion.

Magic Trackpad Double Click Speed Inconsistency

I have set the double click speed in the system preferences for the Magic Trackpad at about the halfway point. But it won't stay there.
Every so often, about once a day, I find myself unable to double click and I discover that the slider that controls double click speed has gone to its highest setting. I set it back, and pretty soon the same thing happens again.
I think there's a bug. Please reconfigure the software so that the double click speed setting remains where it was put.

When the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad are used together it is not possible to set the double-click speed independently.
If the trackpad is set to the highest speed the mouse will not double click. Lower the mouse speed and the trackpad becomes hypersensitive, producing inadvertent selection and dragging problems.

Magic TrackPad not scrolling

I updated to Lion on my iMac and bought a Magic TrackPad. I can't seem to get scrolling to work. I have gone into preferences and unchecked the gestures, closed out of preferences and then reopened and rechecked. Still no scrolling. Any suggestions

I don't have usb overdrive unless it came with something else. Can I go somewhere and get a list of known conflicts?
Some third party app I use and have open are
Dolly drive
Evernote
Growl
Dropbox

Magic Trackpad freezing after startup

I recently got a Magic Trackpad for my MacPro. Installation went well. But when I restarted, the only thing functioning with the trackpad is the cursor. The double click etc. all gone.
I again restarted and all's back to normal.
This happens everytime I open the MacPro. 1st boot the trackpad is not functioning, then when restarted, all will be back to normal.
Need some help here. Thanks so much.

Maybe someone in our brand new Magic Mouse and Trackpad forum can help.
DALE

Magic Trackpad incompatibility list, anyone?

Hi, I just got a magic trackpad. It works as a slow, sluggish mouse with one finger support. So obviously something is wrong. All updates are in, and stuff.
I've read COUNTLESS of posts with people having trouble with this. Some get it to work, some don't.
Could you please help me post a complete uncomatibility list with interfering software? The only one people talking about here is USB overdrive. But I don't have it, so it must be something else.
thanks
Andreas

Sorry.
It was USB Overdrive after all. An old kernel extension or something that wasn't gone after the uninstall.
USBOverdrive.kext
I'll leave it unsolved for a couple of days. So if anyone has had trouble with other software conflicting with the magic trackpad, please add it to the list, starting with USB Overdrive.
/Andreas

HT203171 Magic Trackpad fail. It keeps clicking, sticking, selecting everything to the point of unusability. I'm lucky I have my old "mighty" mouse as a back up. SO annoyed right now. What gives anyways? Why did the trackpad just stop working all of a sud

It's bugging me so bad.
I loved everything about it too, the swiping, gestures and everything are so intuitive. Now, no more thatn 20 minutes ago it just goes crazy. Rebooted the computer. Changed the batteries. Disconnected and reconnected everything. ARGGGGGG.
So lucky I kept an old wireless Might Mouse around, but it feels like being stuck in the past.
Now I'm really upset.
OK, so that was mostly a rant, but man, I'm really ticked. My productivity has gone down in half! I was very acustomed to the trackpad by now - 1 year after purchasing my iMac... and conveniently AFTER the warranty. Those things are like $70!!!
So far there doesn't seem to be a solution. I know it's not a battery or anything - the trackpad is separate from the computer. Tried cleaning the trackpad several times, and no effect.
Please help -
Thanks,
Sm34rZ

Forget everything I wrote about bluetooth device interference having anything to do with this issue. I was obviously headed down a rabbit trail with this suggestion.
What I've since determined (that is working for me) is to focus in on the small round bumpers on the backside of the trackpad. I suspect that over time these probably loosen and become more sensitive or even stuck. This might explain the auto-selecting in the erratic behavior of the trackpad.
As a workaround, I used a felt cloth (folded several times) to elevate the backside of the trackpad so that the bumpers no longer touch my desk. This takes a loose or stuck bumper switch out of the picture. Then I enabled the trackpad features for "Tap to click" and "Secondary click," which are located at: System Preference > Trackpad > Point & Click.
Only if you have serious computer repair skills would I advise attempting to adjust the sensitivy of the bumper switch: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repairing+Magic+Trackpad+Click+Feature/6171/1
As for myself, I'll be purchasing a new trackpad tomorrow morning. I love this device, but it seems that once the bumpers begin to wear out, they do so quite abruptly, and your best course is to get a replacement before pulling out any hair you still have left.
Again, my apologies about the mis-cue on the bluetooth issue. Good luck!

Magic Trackpad reboot?

Hi everyone,
Yesterday my Magic Trackpad is gone. Suddenly.
No scolling response at all, the device is connected, batteries OK, THE PHYSICAL CLICK WORKS, but the pad itself is gone.
Changed batteries, restarted my Mac several times, no way to wake it up.
Before bringing it back for repair, I'm asking something I wasn't able to find anywhere: is there a way, some procedure, to restart/reboot my Magic Trackpad and fix this issue?
Thank you all
Riccardo
PS: Thank you Steve, looking forward for your comeback. Come on!

My instructions in that post said "Keep the first 4 checkboxes checked". I never said check the remaining boxes. And as it turns out, the fifth box is "Force Setup Assistant to runs again on restart". That's why you are being prompted to reenter all your setup config information! The file named /var/db/.AppleSetupDone was deleted which causes that behavior (it says that too for that checkbox).
Don't you have any backups of your boot system? If you did you could try copying the .AppleSetupDone file from the backup. Somehow you need to get /var/db/.AppleSetupDone recreated. You say your original account is there. So there is hope and maybe only getting a new .AppleSetupDone is what's required.
There's a number of ways to approach this. But describing them clearly I suspect is going to loose something in the translation (if my simple BT reset is any example). So what I suggest before you do anything further, if you don't have any backups, back up that disk. Even if it means going out and buying an external enclosure with a disk. At least you'll then be able to do future backups if you ever get yourself out of this mess.
Assuming you have your disk backed up, reboot and go through the setup process but create a different account (i.e., different name from your original account). I'm assuming (hoping really since I'm playing this by ear making it up as I go along) that your /Users will have two accounts showing; the original and the new one created by the new config/setup process.
I am assuming at this point you are logged into the newly created account. If you go into the Accounts preference pane I don't know if it will show both the new and old accounts or just the new account.
Click the lock in the lower left corner and enter your admin password.
Click the Login Options.
Make sure Automatic login is off (leave everything else alone).
Control click (right click) on your newly created account on the left and select Advanced Options...
The field that says Home directory probably says /Users/your-new-account-name, where your account name is whatever you just set up. Change it to /Users/your-old-account-name. In other words you are pointing the home directory back to your original account.
Also note the User ID, which I assume is 501. You are not going to change this but I want to talk more about it a little later.
I think at this point there are two ways to go. The first way is for you click OK and immediately reboot. When presented with the login screen (remember Automatic login has been turned off) log into the new account you had configured for the setup. Basically all that was done was to "move" the home directory for the new account to use the old account's home directory.
I'm assuming you originally only had the one account to begin with (i.e., the one I referred to as your-old-account-name). In that case its User ID should also be 501. This is critical for the permissions stuff so that changing the home directory of the new account should not affect the permissions.
So at this point, if this all works (like I said I'm making this up as I type), you can use your old account but you need to log in with the new account name. If you are happy with that you can trash the /User/your-new-account-name. It's useless anyhow since it too is based on User ID 501.
The second way you could go (remember I said there were two ways to go) is to change the account name in the Advanced Options (the same panel you changed the home directory in) to the old account name. Then click the OK button and reboot.
So this second scheme is you changed both the home directory and account name. I never did this before so I don't know what the implications of this are. But if it works, after clicking the OK button, reboot, and with this scheme you would log in with your old account name. Again trash the /Users/your-new-account-name. Theoretically, you would now be back where you started before you ever tried the BT factory reset.
I've described only one scenario and as I said there are other approaches. But this post is getting too long and maybe confusing.
I hope this is clear enough. No guarantees. And I'll say it again. Make sure you backed that disk up before trying any of this.

Magic Trackpad act funny

I have not seen any area for TrackPad support so this sections seems to me the next logical place to put this post.
Have my Magic TrackPad on a MacMini, believe it was JAn 2009. Everyonce in a while when I use it and move the pointer it selects and area. I sometimes cant get rid of the selecting mode. Tkes several tas. Also it moves wildly and it is difficult to select an item because it moves so erractically. I have it slowed way down in System Preferences. It will work for a while and then act frustrating erratic.
If someone can direct me to a solution it would be appreciated.

I do have a wireless Panasonic phone in the house. Though I don't use it now, I did have it configured so when I was in the house, my cell phone would also ring and visa versa. I don't know if that part of phone is still on. I also use this with the Apple Wireless Keyboard. Come to think of it, the original mouse used to do the same thing which is why I got the track pad. I use this all as my media server in the living room and the coffee table is glass so I had to use the optic mouse on a magazine. I figured that was part of this disfunction of the mouse. THe trackpad does work better but it still does the auto-select and erratic movement. It's hard to zero in on a button to choose if you know what I mean.

Magic Trackpad gone wild

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