Laggy Mouse/Cursor

[digartetc]

Hi all,

I did a search for this issue to see if I could find a solution before posting but to no avail. Most of the search results were ancient and of no help. With that said, here's the issue: my cursor randomly lags, stutters and on occasion comes to a momentary stop. I keep picking it up and blowing air as though some sort of debris is obstructing the sensor but I've come to realize that isn't the cause. I thought my magic mouse being a few years old was starting to fail but unfortunately my brand new replacement is doing the same exact thing. My current hardware: 2020 Mac M1 mini running Ventura 13.3.1.

Any insight on this would be immensely appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[MacInWin]

If it isn't hardware, the next most likely problem is interference. The frequency used by BT to connect the mouse is shared with other devices, so all other BT devices, WiFi devices, remote controls, wireless telephones (not cellular, but wireless land line units). Try moving the Mini to have as little between it and the mouse as you can.

One thing is that it's not systemic, in that there is a "bug" somehow. It is a problem that is unique to you. I have exactly the same Mini and mouse and have zero issues.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Beyond interference, ensure that the battery is fully charged or charged enough.

The other thing you might want to try is to boot into Safe Mode and see if the mouse behaves well or has similar issues.

 

[pm-r]

Any insight on this would be immensely appreciated.

If I may, unless you are deeply attached to your Magic Mouse and how it's supposed to work, but you seem to be having trouble with it for some time now, I would seriously suggest you purchase a new mouse and I have had good luck with Logitech USB wireless mice and I have never been impressed with many Bluetooth mouses but I am assuming that may have improved recently.

I also prefer to customize some of the extra buttons some of the Logitech mice have, but your preferences may differ and may not be interested in such features. But their mice work very well regardless and there's software is not always needed if one is not customizing the mice buttons.

PS: you might also want to try changing or using a different mouse pad than what you are currently using. Different mouse pads can produce different mouse actions, especially if they have a graphic or pattern that can upset any normal smooth tracking.



- Patrick
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[tilt]

my cursor randomly lags, stutters and on occasion comes to a momentary stop

I had that happen to me one minute ago on my 27" 2013 iMac with Magic Trackpad. I restarted the machine and butterflies are flying again, birds are singing again, the sun is shining again.

Cheers

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I had that happen to me one minute ago on my 27" 2013 iMac with Magic Trackpad. I restarted the machine and butterflies are flying again, birds are singing again, the sun is shining again.

Yes, my experience is that the sort of behavior you are suffering from with your wireless mouse is usually caused by some process running on your Mac that is sucking a lot of CPU time.

It might be cleared by restarting your Mac, but the respite may only be temporary.

It also might help to run this free utility:

Maintenance (free)
https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/maintenance.html

Have a look in Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor
Launch Activity Monitor, click on the CPU tab, and then click on the "%CPU" header.
Then click on the triangle in the %CPU header so that things are ordered in that column from most to
least. See if anything is running that is using an inordinate amount of CPU time. If something
has a really high number, this is likely to be what is causing your mouse to lag.

If you are running fully interactive anti-virus software, especially Sophos, you shouldn't be surprised to find that it is the culprit. I've also seen instances where DropBox caused such a problem.