Question :
I have a MacBook Air M4 and it works great. But there’s a problem that I’m encountering that I’ve never seen before on any of my Macs : when my MacBook wakes from sleep mode, I can move the cursor without any problems, but clicking the trackpad to do a ‘mouse click’ to activate anything on screen doesn’t work… the only solution I’ve found until now is to reboot my MacBook using the power button, but that is a very annoying solution…

Is my MacBook’s trackpad broken ? Or is this a software problem that I can fix myself ?

Answer :
There is a small chance you have run into a hardware failure (meaning your MacBook’s trackpad is broken), but it’s far more logical that the problem you are encountering is a software problem :
Did you recently use a wireless Magic Mouse with your MacBook maybe ?
If so, just make sure you have your Magic Mouse turned OFF when you’re not using it.
That’s it !

Even if your Magic Mouse is in another room and/or in a bag, it can interfere with your MacBook’s trackpad, especially after waking from sleep your MacBook can automatically connect to the Magic Mouse and if anything is pressing on it, your MacBook will think that you are already clicking the mouse button and therefore it will not register any clicking of the mousepad…
If you manually switch OFF your Magic Mouse if you’re done using it (so before you put it in your laptop case), your problem will be fixed.

The above could also occur if you use another type or brand of bluetooth mouse (or external trackpad, controller or joystick) with your MacBook.

If you have never used a bluetooth mouse or controller with your MacBook and you still encounter this problem, it will usually be fixed by resetting the PRAM (and NVRAM) :
– shut down your MacBook
– restart your MacBook using the power button
– then, immediately (during the first stage of reboot) press and hold this key-combo :
[CMD]+[ALT]+[P]+[R]
– keep holding the key-combo when your MacBook restarts
– release the key-combo when you hear the macOS startup chime (sound) for the second time and wait for your MacBook to start up

That’s it !

enjoy 😉