7

My mouse is stuck in "drag" mode. This generally happens in Photoshop, but happens dragging files and such as well.

Clicking rapidly here and there generally solves the problem. Sometimes though, it won't go away until a restart. Unplugging devices, etc., doesn't do anything.

For example, right now, my mouse moves but can not click anything so I am using the keyboard to navigate this site.

Is there a way to "reset" however the OS stores mouse states?

Can I manually fire off a MouseUp event?

It's strange that even when human input devices are unplugged, the files are still in drag state.

Yuji Tomita
  • 623

5 Answers5

7

I got exactly the same issue, but the internet resolves nothing. It seems that when I restart my MacbookPro, it "could" go away. When I close all my apps, I get more successful results. When Lion loads the apps that were open when I restarted, I get a "sticky" drop scenario more consistently. Not hardware related, think it could be a Lion glitch.

Update: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3191768?start=0&tstart=0

Quick fix for the drag and drop: sleep and wake your MacBook. For whatever reason everything is fixed when I do it. But if I restart, I lose it again. It must be some type of startup issue.

dbr
  • 5,147
Herman Geldenhuys
  • 71
2

If you go into "Trackpad" in "System Settings" and toggle various options for gestures, clicks, and drags.. it will "unlock". Annoying, yes. Requiring a restart, no.

Also, sometimes a key on the keyboard gets stuck. Bang on the keys (or equivalent) to make sure that's not causing your grief.

mralexgray
  • 808
2

I experienced this problem and dealt with it for a month or two by putting the machine to sleep every time I noticed it. This is only a temporary fix, however, as the problem returns on a restart. Not usually a problem, but makes apps like Photoshop neigh unusable!

I was pretty sure Air Display (an iOS screen sharing app) was the culprit so I tried uninstalling it with AppCleaner, but the problem remained. However, this SwitchingtoMac ad confirmed my suspicion: http://www.switchingtomac.com/tutorials/osx/cant-drag-and-drop-in-os-x-lion/

A quick Finder search turned up a proper uninstall script for AirDisplay and the problem was gone. The above article outlines a number of other possible solutions as well. Good luck!

Amplegorp
  • 21
1

I have the same problem from time to time. When it does occur it stands to reason that a system reboot should fix the problem and it typically does.

However, a 100%-sure-fire way to at least free up the mouse to make it usable without playing with settings or rebooting is to just FORCE QUIT which ever application the stuck icon originates from. If the issue is with an icon from the desktop then Force Quit (which is actually just Relaunching) Finder.

Although this won't fix the problem in that if you attempt to click and drag again, the object in question is basically guaranteed to get stuck again. It's a temporary fix that's faster than a reboot and sure to work every time.

Guy who helps
  • 11
  • 1
0

Have you checked if this is caused by Mouse Keys? This didn't solve this issue for me, but it worked for the poster there.

Hemmer
  • 181