Mouse hover doesn't work when Microsoft mouse is connected

Question

I'm using the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop for one and a half years now and had no problems with it.

A couple of days ago I noticed weird behaviour with the mouse. The same behaviour was with the trackpad as long as the mouse's dongle was connected to the Mac.

Any mouse-over/hover behaviour is gone. The Dock doesn't pop up automatically, no tooltips or sub-menus (which only open when hovering the curser above them) show up.

I did do some changes before I noticed it. I created an admin account and set my personal account to standard; I activated the firewall; I activated FileVault. I'm uncertain if this is just a coincidence.

Additionally, a strange side effect occurs when plugging the dongle in or out: If a web browser is opened, you can see that the web-page's layout slightly shifts horizontally.

My Mac's specs: OSX 10.10.3 (14D136) MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)

The keyboard/mouse combo: Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop

Update

I tried replacing the batteries, which did not help.

I tried out the mouse on my colleagues Mac and it had the same behaviour.

Interestingly, when I turn off the mouse while keeping the dongle plugged in, the track pad behaves normal again.

Answer 1

I know it's an old thread but since there are no solution mentioned for the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse... I had the same problem and fixed it just now.

It is a hardware issue where the little button below the Windows blue button gets stuck. I had two of these and the one where it was clickable, it worked fine and the second one had the button stuck and the hover over wasn't working. I stuck a push pin into it and tried to pry it out through the rubber layer on it and it now works fine.

So it was down to poor quality buttons on this nice mouse.

Answer 2

This is most likely your mouse failing, which is not related to the changes you made. It seems that the mouse is only reporting the cursor location when it is clicked, and the fact that a webpage shifts horizontally when the dongle is plugged and unplugged and the mouse is not being moved is a sign that the mouse is sending false information to the computer.

Before you get a new mouse, try replacing the batteries in all of your wireless mouse/keyboard devices, and try using a different mouse in case it is a problem with the computer.

Answer 3

I've noticed a similar problem with my Microsoft mouse. However I'm not sure if it's just a generic bug or related to Microsoft mouse & keyboard. On restart it usually fixes the problem for an hour or so.

Need to test this in more depth, but I don't use my keyboard setup often enough to know for sure.

Answer 4

Solution without need damage the mouse

Im having this problem with the same mouse and the button below the windows button is stuck (like the reply of Jaime Santa Cruz says)

BUT, how i want avoid lose my warranty making any damage on the mouse (i go send this mouse to microsoft in the next days), im using a temporary fix with USB Overdrive. I just install it, and in config, i put the button 4 and 5, to "Do nothing".

This make the stuck button stop "working" software side, and the hover work again.

PS: You need install overdrive, restart the system. After this, go to the system preferences and change the overdrive options.

PS2: Overdrive is a shareware, but only have a message on system start-up and a 10 seconds delay on pref panel, you can use it with full options.

Answer 5

I know this is an old thread but I ran into this after issue and it was driving me crazy. I used a cutter to open the rubber over the switch and as soon as I did that the button was clickable again and hover was working too. It's like over time it develops a "air seal" that sticks the button.