Mouse may cease to interact with game after switching window focus in Mac OS Catalina

[fireflydreamer]

Hi there

I am running FFXIV on my Mac Pro with a Steel Series Rival 110 mouse using the Steel Series engine

Since using Mac OS Catalina, I have found that sometimes after switching mouse focus from the game out to other applications and back again, the mouse will no longer interact with the FFXIV UI. It will move around across the game window but mouse clicks no longer register in any part of the FFXIV interface.

This only happens occasionally and I have not found a specific repeatable trigger.

If I hard quit the game from the application window, and restart, things are okay again.

I wondered if anyone else had noticed this and had any ideas or suggestions please ? It never occurred before I updated to Catalina and it has been happening now for some weeks since.

[Dynratygus]

Good morning and thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Techincal Support Forums

Does this issue occur if a different mouse is being used? Does this occur with any other program or just Final Fantasy XIV?

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

[fireflydreamer]

Thanks for reply

It only occurs with Final Fantasy XIV and only since updating to Mac OS Catalina

I will try and source another mouse to test the issue with, but that may take a little time

Thank you.

Good morning and thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Techincal Support Forums

Does this issue occur if a different mouse is being used? Does this occur with any other program or just Final Fantasy XIV?

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

[Packetdancer]

So, I'm not customer service here or anything, but this problem sounds weirdly familiar to me. The underpinning tech of FFXIV's Mac port is the WINE-based Crossover system from CodeWeavers, and there's an issue I've seen before with things running in WINE in full-screen mode: if you have the Windows app within a WINE bottle running in 'full-screen' mode (even if that 'full screen' is actually treated as a window in the host system), it basically has to treat the window for that app differently and there's a bug where flipping out of that window and back can cause it to lose the ability to register mouse clicks. It would not surprise me in the least if the WINE issue in question is exacerbated by the hoops through which Crossover now jumps to work on Catalina.

Short form: if it were that bug, switching to another app would have a chance of making the FFXIV window no longer register any mouse click events. (And possibly would stop it from even showing tooltips if you hovered over things.) I don't have the macOS version handy to check, but if the Mac version has an option in the display menu to run in windowed or borderless windowed modes and is currently running 'full screen', I'd try switching modes just to see whether or not it improves things at all.

[fireflydreamer]

Thank you for that thought. It certainly sounds related ...

I'm actually already running FFXIV in Windowed mode, but I will take a look at the options.

I still haven't pinned down the precise repro conditions as to exactly what sort of window focus change causes it. It does seem a little random and most recently happened when switching out to Photoshop and back.

Hoping to try and identify it further, and also test with another mouse when I can get hold of one. It never happened at all before the Mac OS Catalina update.

[fireflydreamer]

Just updating here.

I made a bit of progress on narrowing this bug down after it occurred during the Limitless Blue duty last night. As usual running in windowed mode on Mac OS Catalina.

I moused out of FFXIV to tweak sound volume from the Finder menu and my cursor drifted across onto my second monitor where I had a browser window in view. Coming back to FFXIV I had no mouse click ability in FFXIV but managed to complete the duty using keyboard only. This sort of thing occurs randomly, not repeatably.

At the end of the duty, as I could not click and interact with the exit portal to leave anyway, I did some experimentation while the bug was present :

- Mouse clicks not registered in FFXIV window UI, buttons, chat box or any world objects

- Mouse clicks are being registered by all other application windows and OS.

- Mouseover tooltips and highlights do register, flash and pop up normally upon cursor hover in FFXIV

- Unplugging and replugging USB mouse did not correct the issue

- Plugging in a different mouse (simple Apple mouse) did not correct the issue

What -did- correct and reset the problem was :

- Grabbing the FFXIV window, dragging it right over onto my second monitor, then dragging it back to the main monitor

So there is at least a quick fix workaround it seems, but it suggests that the problem may relate to randomly losing mouse click registration when changing window focus in a multiple monitor setup. As mentioned before, it has only occurred since updating to Catalina.

Hope that helps !

[Packetdancer]

in a multiple monitor setup

OH. That piece of data clarifies things.

There's a known and somewhat-convoluted WINE bug with multi-monitor setups where if a WINE window is on the primary display it's possible to lose mouse clicks in that window if the mouse cursor moves between displays while WINE is not the foreground app; it's been open—and unfortunately, unsolved—for about a year. It used to only show up on Linux that I know of, but given some of Catalina's underlying changes it wouldn't surprise me if it now affects the macOS version even if it didn't previously. And since Crossover is built atop WINE (and the macOS version of FFXIV is built atop Crossover), it seems fairly possible that could be the root cause here.

[fireflydreamer]

Thanks for that, I suspect you may have hit the nail on the head, certainly sounds about right.

it's quite random but not too frequent, happened again today while tabbing out to snap a Gyazo.

So I quickly dragged my whole FFXIV window over to 2nd monitor and back and it restored mouse function again ... at least that seems to fix the issue repeatedly when it occurs.

Sadly it sounds like one of those bugs that's living in the crossover between MacOS Catalina, Wine and FFXIV so heaven only knows if/when it'll resolve.

Thanks for the advice

[Dynratygus]

Thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

Due to no response from the original poster, this thread will be moved to 'Closed Concerns.' If anyone is still having this particular problem, please create a new thread and we will assist you in any way we can.

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.