No applications respond to trackpad clicks I had a application called Boxcryptor which recently threw some errors (version expired, upgrade, etc.) and left the system in a unusable state.

My MacBook running Lion no longer responds to mouse (trackpad) clicks on any windows. I am able to move the mouse pointer but clicking on any controls in application does not work. The window does not even register the click (doesn't even get focused).

However, I am able to launch Terminal from Spotlight and managed to cleanly uninstall Boxcryptor using the provider Uninstall.Command. I also uninstalled some other potentially problematic applications like USB Overdrive. It doesn't help.

I have walked through several standard checks.


Verify/Repair disk permissions -- done; found some errors and fixed them.
Verify/Repair Disk - none found.
Rebooted in safe mode tried doing resetpassword to reset user directory permissions but unable to focus the controls in the dialog to execute the reset.
turned on "Use tabs to navigate for all controls". Doesn't have a effect in the Recovery mode.
Unable to press Enter to execute (nor mouse click) any focused controls.. so unable to launch Lion Reinstall in the recovery mode.
In console I see "Could not connect the action buttonPressed: to target of class NSApplication" for Dock. however KillAll Dock does not fix it. In my case though none of the UI widgets respond to any clicks.


Any other ideas I could try to fix this?

Update: I managed to start Lion reinstall by selecting it with arrow keys tab to focus "continue" and hitting space instead of enter to start it. However, I am stuck at the validate license when it tries to login to appstore. Can't make that window get Focus to type in username/password.
This sounds like a perfect candidate for VoiceOver. It's fairly (if not entirely) straightforward to learn and use.

Hit Command ⌘+F5 to turn on VoiceOver. (You may need to use the fn key as well to hit F5.) You can then hold down Control ⌃+Option ⌥ (usually referred to as the VO keys) and use the arrow keys to navigate around the screen.

Here is Apple's page on VoiceOver and here is a tutorial on how to use the technology.