Latest beta caused trackpad to be unresponsive (workaround)

[m-thomson]

Upon updating to the latest Beta, the mouse pointer in my freshly booted Tahoe VM was unresponsive. I managed to use the keyboard to shutdown the VM (ctrl+f2 to focus the menu bar) and then toggled the "Pointing Device" from trackpad to mouse and back. Then I rebooted and it worked.

I hope this helps someone.

[insidegui]

I couldn't reproduce this issue here.

The latest beta added a couple of buttons to the toolbar that can be used to disable keyboard and pointer input to the VM. Perhaps you accidentally turned off trackpad input in your first run?

Before shipping 2.2 I plan on making this state more obvious since it's not that hard to do accidentally (or forget you've done it and then wonder why things aren't working 😅)

[m-thomson]

Sorry, I should have mentioned I tried that. No luck, unfortunately. In case it matters: this is with an external Apple trackpad. I didn't think to try the built-in one at the time. Maybe that's a clue? At any rate, it was easy to fix. Thanks.

[insidegui]

I also use an external Magic Trackpad, so I don't think that's the problem.

If you can reproduce it again, please send more details such as exact host/guest build numbers and a system log archive from the past couple of minutes. Running the following command in Terminal will create and reveal an archive on your desktop with the logs:

sudo log collect --last 2m --output ~/Desktop/VirtualBuddy.logarchive && aa archive -D ~/Desktop/VirtualBuddy.logarchive -o ~/Desktop/VirtualBuddy.aar && trash ~/Desktop/VirtualBuddy.logarchive && open -R ~/Desktop/VirtualBuddy.aar

Also try downgrading to the previous beta to verify that it's a regression in 2.2 beta 5 and not a preexisting issue.

[m-thomson]

I'll restore the previous beta and the VM from my overnight Time Machine backup so I can recreate the issue. I'll record details before and after updating to the latest beta.

Is there any preference file(s) I should also restore to recreate the exact state?

[m-thomson]

I restored the VM from backup (with a different name) and it booted correctly: Mouse pointer works fine. I'm not sure what happened. You can close this.

Out of curiosity, are trackpad gestures meant to be able to work in the VM? I noticed that System Settings only had the panel for "Mouse" not "Trackpad". FWIW, UTM doesn't show either "Mouse" or "Trackpad" settings panels on my system, but the mouse pointer works fine in both Apps.

Perhaps this is an inherent limitation of Apple's virtualization framework?

(Note: Sequoia host, Tahoe guest in both UTM and VB).

[insidegui]

Out of curiosity, are trackpad gestures meant to be able to work in the VM? I noticed that System Settings only had the panel for "Mouse" not "Trackpad". FWIW, UTM doesn't show either "Mouse" or "Trackpad" settings panels on my system, but the mouse pointer works fine in both Apps.

I tested on macOS 14 and macOS 27 guests here and trackpad gestures work just fine, including inertial scrolling, pinch to zoom, and two-finger rotation. I'm on a macOS 27 host though. Both guests show the Mouse pane in System Settings.

[m-thomson]

ok, thanks a bunch.