Razer Deathadder Back/Forward buttons in Big Sur Apple M1

Question

I'm trying to use my Razer Deathadder Elite mouse on my M1 MacBook Pro that's running Big Sur.

The problem I'm running into is that macOS is treating the back/forward buttons as middle clicks. For example, if I'm in a browser, it will start scrolling.

I tried to download Razer Synapse, but it's not detecting the mouse at all. This might be because it's running with Rosetta since it's only made for Intel Macs right now.

This is briefly discussed here: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/649829

Indeed, I get the same error as some in that thread:

sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/RazerHid.kext

Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil load -p /Library/Extensions/RazerHid.kext
Error Domain=KMErrorDomain Code=71 "Incompatible architecture: Binary is for x86_64, but needed arch arm64e
Unsupported Error: one or more extensions are unsupported to load   Kext com.razer.common.razerhid v21.94 in executable kext bundle com.razer.common.razerhid at /Library/Extensions/RazerHid.kext" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Incompatible architecture: Binary is for x86_64, but needed arch arm64e
Unsupported Error: one or more extensions are unsupported to load   Kext com.razer.common.razerhid v21.94 in executable kext bundle com.razer.common.razerhid at /Library/Extensions/RazerHid.kext}

It seems like Razer is not going to support macOS, but it's surprising to me that there's no "easy" way to simply remap the back/forward buttons... am I just missing something?

Answer 1

I ended up getting this to work with BetterTouchTool. Not ideal since it costs money, but at least my mouse works now?

I'm a bit dumbfounded that functionality like this isn't built into the OS and is delegated to a premium third party application.

Another (free) option I found is to use Karabiner-Elements with the following added to ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json:

          {
            "manipulators": [
              {
                "description": "Mouse button4 → Command + [",
                "conditions": [
                  {
                    "bundle_identifiers": ["^com\\.microsoft\\.VSCode"],
                    "type": "frontmost_application_unless"
                  }
                ],
                "from": {
                  "pointing_button": "button4",
                  "modifiers": {
                    "optional": ["any"]
                  }
                },
                "to": [
                  {
                    "key_code": "open_bracket",
                    "modifiers": ["left_command"]
                  }
                ],
                "type": "basic"
              },
              {
                "description": "Mouse button5 → Command + ]",
                "conditions": [
                  {
                    "bundle_identifiers": ["^com\\.microsoft\\.VSCode"],
                    "type": "frontmost_application_unless"
                  }
                ],
                "from": {
                  "pointing_button": "button5",
                  "modifiers": {
                    "optional": ["any"]
                  }
                },
                "to": [
                  {
                    "key_code": "close_bracket",
                    "modifiers": ["left_command"]
                  }
                ],
                "type": "basic"
              }
            ]
          }

(Note the exceptions for Visual Studio Code; it handles the mouse back/forward buttons natively)

Answer 2

There's this FOSS app https://github.com/noah-nuebling/mac-mouse-fix that works great with my Razer Viper Ultimate.

Answer 3

You could try out USB Overdrive as an alternative. It can be used without paying (though payment is encourage to support the developer): https://www.usboverdrive.com/index.php/download/

I'm not sure whether it works with Apple Silicon though. It's smooth on Big Sur 11.5 with Intel.

Another option I haven't tried is Steermouse, a Japanese app with the same purpose: http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/download.php