Cursor slowdown

I have noticed recently that occasionally I am unable to smoothly move my cursor using my trackpad on my Mini. The cursor either does not move, moves very slowly or "jerks" with sudden movements and then no movement. My initial assumption was that something was taking up time on the system so I opened the Activity Monitor (when I could finally get the cursor to the spotlight icon) to see what was taking up the cpu time. According to the Activity Monitor nothing was taking up very much time and, except for when I am editing photos, I rarely have any application running other than my browser and the normal OS apps.

Rebooting solves the problem although sometimes only for a short time when the problem reappears. I can find no real cpu usage, no real memory usage and I began to worry that I had some malware on my system. However when I ran Malware Bytes it found nothing. Can anyone suggest what might be going on on my system?

Wireless or wired trackpad? If it's bluetooth, there can be interference from other electronics, not even BT electronics. Wireless landlines, remote speakers, other BT items?

If it is series 1 trackpad try giving it a good clean. Hot sweaty grubby fingersd on humid days can leave a lot on the trackpad. And like anything electrical they can fail.

Also the rubber feet can fail by compressing over the years and are available from a couple of dollars on eBay and such.


https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Magic+Trackpad+Rubber+Replacement-Reinsertion/16825

MacInWin said:

Wireless or wired trackpad? If it's bluetooth, there can be interference from other electronics, not even BT electronics. Wireless landlines, remote speakers, other BT items?

Click to expand...

It is a standard Apple trackpad - bluetooth connected.

I never thought about interference so perhaps I need to make sure my phone is not next to it when the phone has its bluetooth functionality enabled. The next time I see this, I will check on the state of the phone. Thank you for the suggestion.

harryb2448 said:

If it is series 1 trackpad try giving it a good clean. Hot sweaty grubby fingersd on humid days can leave a lot on the trackpad. And like anything electrical they can fail.

Also the rubber feet can fail by compressing over the years and are available from a couple of dollars on eBay and such.


https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Magic+Trackpad+Rubber+Replacement-Reinsertion/16825

Click to expand...

I will check on this as well. I will clean the trackpad and see if that makes any difference.

One of the things that puzzles me is that when I reboot the problem seems to disappear, at least for a little while.

MikeFromMesa said:

One of the things that puzzles me is that when I reboot the problem seems to disappear, at least for a little while.

Click to expand...

When you reboot, your Bluetooth connection re-trains, and you get the strongest possible connection, at least for a few seconds.

If you have a USB mouse, you might want to attach it and see if the problem exists using a wired connection. If it does not, it is extremely likely that it is a Bluetooth problem.

Bluetooth is finicky. It can give you problems if your mouse has old batteries, or if there is any sort of electro-magnetic or radio signal interference, such as a wireless telephone, a florescent desk lamp, an external hard drive with an internal power supply, etc. See if you can move your trackpad as close to your Mac as possible and as far away as possible from any source of interference.

Personally I try to steer clients away from Bluetooth input devices. Instead, I like plain RF mice. I especially like this one:

Logitech M310
$13
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Logitech-Wireless-Mouse-M310/14301744

Dirt cheap, dead reliable, comfortable, uses only one AA battery that lasts for many months. The downside is that it will use up one of your precious USB ports, but that's less of a problem if you have a USB hub.

There was a really inexpensive RF trackpad that I used to recommend, from Dell, but unfortunately it was discontinued.

This may be interference in the bluetooth connection.

Oh, one other thing...if you are running a version of the MacOS prior to Sierra, try launching Disk Utility and running Repair Permissions. Repairing permissions doesn't fix a lot of things, but oddly I've seen it fix text that is slow to a appear when typed, and a jumping cursor. (It's no longer necessary to repair permissions under Sierra.)

If you had a laptop with a built-in trackpad, I'd worry that the problem was a lithium ion battery that was swelling and impinging on the trackpad, but you said that you are using a separate trackpad, which doesn't suffer from that problem.

Randy B. Singer said:

When you reboot, your Bluetooth connection re-trains, and you get the strongest possible connection, at least for a few seconds.

If you have a USB mouse, you might want to attach it and see if the problem exists using a wired connection. If it does not, it is extremely likely that it is a Bluetooth problem.

Bluetooth is finicky. It can give you problems if your mouse has old batteries, or if there is any sort of electro-magnetic or radio signal interference, such as a wireless telephone, a florescent desk lamp, an external hard drive with an internal power supply, etc. See if you can move your trackpad as close to your Mac as possible and as far away as possible from any source of interference.

Personally I try to steer clients away from Bluetooth input devices. Instead, I like plain RF mice. I especially like this one:

Logitech M310
$13
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Logitech-Wireless-Mouse-M310/14301744

Dirt cheap, dead reliable, comfortable, uses only one AA battery that lasts for many months. The downside is that it will use up one of your precious USB ports, but that's less of a problem if you have a USB hub.

There was a really inexpensive RF trackpad that I used to recommend, from Dell, but unfortunately it was discontinued.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the information and the suggestions. I did not know about bluetooth re-training upon a reboot.

I do have a usb mouse so I can try that when this problem recurs (as I am sure it will - it has been appearing and disappearing for months now) but I would rather not use a mouse. Some time ago I decided to try to use a mouse instead a trackpad on my Mini, but found that there was no way for me to do the equivalent of the "pinch-and-spread" to zoom and un-zoom the display. The mouse I had was pretty old, but had a scroll wheel that I thought might allow me the zoom functionality, but it did not and I missed that functionality so much that I went back to the trackpad.

My Mini setup is a bit unusual as my Mini is on a desk at the foot of my small sofa while I sit and use it while stretched out on the sofa. That means that the trackpad is about 3 or 4 feet from the Mini itself so perhaps the bluetooth signal is not as strong as it might be were the trackpad closer. I set the system up this way because I was sick and tired of sitting at a desk working on my computer as I had done that for many years before I retired. I decided I wanted to be comfortable and relaxed, and this setup gives me that. It also may be contributing to my bluetooth problem. Perhaps there are newer mice that I could use that implement some zoom functionality. i will look. I will also try to make sure that there are no other devices close to where I "work" that might be interfering.

Again, thank you for the help.

The Apple Magic Mouse allows for "pinch and zoom", however, I personally do not like it (for other reasons) but maybe it may suit you to use one instead of the trackpad.

MikeFromMesa said:

Some time ago I decided to try to use a mouse instead a trackpad on my Mini, but found that there was no way for me to do the equivalent of the "pinch-and-spread" to zoom and un-zoom the display. The mouse I had was pretty old, but had a scroll wheel that I thought might allow me the zoom functionality, but it did not and I missed that functionality so much that I went back to the trackpad.

Click to expand...

There are two other easy ways to zoom the screen other then via "pinch and zoom."

You can hold down the Command key and hit the plus and minus keys to zoom-in and zoom-out.

You can also hold down the Control key and then use your mouse's scroll-wheel to zoom in and out.

You may have to enable "Zoom" in System Preferences --> Accessibility/Universal Access to get the above to work.

Randy B. Singer said:

There are two other easy ways to zoom the screen other then via "pinch and zoom."

You can hold down the Command key and hit the plus and minus keys to zoom-in and zoom-out.

You can also hold down the Control key and then use your mouse's scroll-wheel to zoom in and out.

You may have to enable "Zoom" in System Preferences --> Accessibility/Universal Access to get the above to work.

Click to expand...

Live and learn. I did not know that. Thank you for that information.

I thought I knew how to use my Mac, but perhaps I need to get your book.

MikeFromMesa said:

I thought I knew how to use my Mac, but perhaps I need to get your book.

Click to expand...

The Macintosh Bible has been out of print for a long time now.

However, if you want a really good book to learn how to do stuff on your Macintosh, check out:

MacOS Sierra The Missing Manual (about $25)
https://www.amazon.com/macOS-Sierra-Missing-Manual-should/dp/149197723X/?tag=macforums0e4-20

However, if you want a really good book to learn how to do stuff on your Macintosh, check out:

MacOS Sierra The Missing Manual (about $25)
https://www.amazon.com/macOS-Sierra-...dp/149197723X/?tag=macforums0e4-20

Click to expand...

Wow!! So David Pogue is still writing and authoring The Missing Manual series.

I always enjoyed his writing and humour style. And some good Mac points as well. :Blushing:

At least he dropped the “for Dummies” in the title part.




- Patrick
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