2

I've found that often when you are experiencing trouble with a peripheral, deleting the plist file can often fix the problem.

My USB mouse has been sticking/freezing for a second at a time lately.

I've looked throughout ~/Library/Preferences/, but saw no filenames that make me confident enough to delete any of them.

UPDATE

I was able to delete the com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist file that was showing in the Terminal but not in the Finder.

Pauls-iMac: soliddev$ ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep driver
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist
Pauls-iMac: soliddev$ rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist
Pauls-iMac: soliddev$ ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep driver
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist
Pauls-iMac: soliddev$

Unfortunately, the mouse sticking/freezing persists.

UPDATE

At the end of the day, I've bought a new mouse, the problem seems to be fixed for now. Thanks for the help.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

The tracking speed is stored in the ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist file.

defaults read -g | grep mouse
"com.apple.mouse.doubleClickThreshold" = "1.1";
"com.apple.mouse.scaling" = "2.5";

The slowest speed shown in System Preferences is 0.0 and the highest is 3.0

You can change the speed by editing the plist directly or with defaults, but you have to log out and back in.

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling -float 2.1

This AppleScript code would change the speed immediately:

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal pane "com.apple.preference.mouse"
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"
    set value of slider 3 of window 1 to 9.0 -- maximum, minimum is 0.0
end tell
quit application "System Preferences"

EDIT: defaults find mouse will search your default domains, keys, and values for the word mouse, without the need to pipe to grep.

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1
  • You misunderstand... the speed isn't changing, the mouse stops moving completely for a second or two then returns to normal.
    – Solid_I
    Sep 11, 2015 at 17:01
-1

In Terminal.app:

ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep mouse

or

ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep mouse

or

ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep driver

should give you a list of suspects.

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5
  • Is it an Apple mouse? with ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep mouse I get: com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist . If your mouse isn't Apple branded, you could try grepping for the makers name.
    – PeterVP
    Sep 8, 2015 at 10:01
  • It is not an Apple Mouse, it's a Logitech USB mouse. ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep driver returned 2 files that seem to be bluetooth related and this file: com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist. Would you think deleting this file might solve the sticking/freezing mouse problem?
    – Solid_I
    Sep 9, 2015 at 14:42
  • I decided to go ahead and delete the 'com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist' file, but when I navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/ via Finder, that file is not there. I have vision of all hidden files/folders, fyi. To be clear, typing ls ~/Library/Preferences/ | grep driver in terminal produced com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist, but That file does not show via the Finder.
    – Solid_I
    Sep 9, 2015 at 18:31
  • Those files should be visible in the Finder, they're visible on my system. You can try searching in the Finder while you are in the ~/Library/Preferences folder. Type in the search bar and look for mouse , mouse, logitech , Logitech, usb or USB. If that doesn't show anything, then I don't know.
    – PeterVP
    Sep 10, 2015 at 8:55
  • Did the Logitech mouse come with software? Did it install a driver? If so reinstall the software or update it if there is that option.
    – PeterVP
    Sep 10, 2015 at 8:56

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