BTT ignores system setting to disable force click, for 3+ fingers

Bugs or Unexpected Behavior
1

Describe the bug

I have disabled force click in system settings. I do not use it, and I do not want to use it. When I click on my trackpad, I want it to register as a click, not as a force click.

However, after I updated BTT recently, now clicks with 3 or more fingers become force clicks when I press firmly, which I do not want. This only happens while BTT is running, and it only affects 3+ finger clicks.

If I quit BTT then force clicks are properly disabled, in accordance with my system setting. I want that to remain the case when I have BTT open. It used to work properly before I updated BTT, though I don’t remember which version I had before updating.

Affected input device (e.g. MacBook Trackpad, Magic Mouse/Trackpad, Touch Bar, etc.):

MacBook Air trackpad

Device information:

  • Type of Mac: M3 MBA
  • macOS version: 26.4.1
  • BetterTouchTool version: 6.506
2

BTT can not create force clicks (unfortunately, I would like to be able to create such). Is it maybe just some haptic feedback that happens?

You can disable any haptic feedback here, or make it so hard to trigger it will never happen in practice:

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3

Here is what I observe:

In System Settings > Trackpad I have the “Force click and haptic feedback” toggle off.

When BTT is not running, I cannot perform any force clicks. This tells me that the system setting is working properly.

When BTT is running, I can perform 3 and 4 finger force clicks and feel the haptic feedback.

If I configure a BTT action to trigger on 4-finger click, and I perform a 4-finger force click, then the action does not happen. This tells me that BTT sees force clicks as different from regular clicks.

If I configure a BTT action to trigger on 4-finger force click, and I perform a 4-finger force click, then the action does happen. This tells me that BTT really is seeing and responding to force clicks.

If I change the “Haptic response for force clicks (2-5 Fingers)” option in BTT settings to “No Feedback”, and I perform a 4-finger force click, then I do not feel haptic feedback, but my 4-finger click action does not trigger, and if I have a 4-finger force click action then it does trigger.

From this I infer that BTT somehow ignores or overrides the system setting to disable force clicks.

Furthermore, I remember that on an older version of BTT, force clicks never happened when I had them disabled in system settings. I don’t remember which BTT version I had before, it might have been 5.x or an earlier 6.x.

The reason I noticed that something had changed, is because I use a 4-finger click BTT action for “Mute”. I tried to activate it today, and felt the haptic feedback from a force click and noticed that the volume had not been muted.

This had never happened to me before, and I have been using the same action to do the same thing for years. The only thing that changed was I recently updated BTT.

4

I just did a binary search through previous BTT releases, and I find that 6.198 has the current behavior (3+ finger force clicks are possible when it is running, even though force clicks are disabled in system settings) while 6.197 does not (no force clicks are possible when it is running, as they are disabled in system settings).

I also note that BTT 6.197 does not see any of my existing configured actions, which I presume is due to a change in the file format, while BTT 6.198 does see them (except that it does not see the newest actions I just made in 6.506 while testing this).

5

what exactly do you mean by force clicks? What do they do?

6

1. I press down on my trackpad with 4 fingers.

2. I feel the haptic feedback for a click.

3. I press down more firmly.

4. I feel the haptic feedback for a force click.

5. If I have a BTT action configured for “4 finger force click” then it triggers.

6. I remove my hand from the trackpad.

7. If I have a BTT action configured for “4 finger click” then it does not trigger at any point in this sequence.

Hmm, I just tried creating an action in BTT 6.197, and then it had the same behavior as newer versions. I also tried 5.631, which is marked as “Previous stable build”, and it was the same: with no actions, there was no force click, but with any action, even not configured, then force clicks become possible.

In fact, even with current BTT, if I make a new preset, set it to “Master”, disable my old presets, and restart BTT, then force clicks are not possible. But if I then create any action (I only tried in the trackpad tab) then 3+ finger force clicks start happening again.

My memory is clear though: I intentionally disabled force clicks a long time ago because I never want to use them. I always want pressing down on the trackpad to perform a click, not a force click. And that is how it always worked until recently.

I had never had an “accidental force click” until today when I updated BTT.

7

And just to be clear, when I do not have BTT running, this is what I see:

1. I press down on my trackpad with 4 fingers.

2. I feel the haptic feedback for a click.

3. I press down more firmly.

4. I do not feel any more haptic feedback, because I have force click disabled in system settings.

5. I remove my hand from the trackpad.

And what I remember from older BTT versions:

1. I press down on my trackpad with 4 fingers.

2. I feel the haptic feedback for a click.

3. If I have a BTT action configured for “4 finger click” then it triggers.

4. I press down more firmly.

5. I do not feel any more haptic feedback, because I have force click disabled in system settings.

6. I remove my hand from the trackpad.

7. If I have a BTT action configured for “4 finger force click” then it does not trigger at any point in this sequence.

However, I am not able to replicate that by downgrading BTT.

By changing my 4-finger click action to trigger on press down, and changing the BTT setting to have no haptic response for force touch, I am able to simulate the behavior that I want.

However I am a bit uneasy about this setup because it means that BTT will silently recognize force clicks. For example, if I were ever to import someone else’s BTT preset, and it included 3+ finger force click actions, then they would still happen if I press firmly on my trackpad but I would not get any haptic feedback so I would not even notice.

8

The old behavior sounds like a bug (at least if I understand correctly), if you have a 4 finger force click configured in BTT, then it should trigger when pressing harder. BTT does mostly not care about what is configured in system settings.

However maybe you could just set the required force to something really big like 3kg:

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9

Well, I suppose it was speculation on my part that those actions would not occur. I don’t know for sure because I didn’t have any of those actions.

What I do clearly recall is that I would never feel the haptic feedback from pressing harder, but now I do.

10

Also, that fact remains that with BTT running but with no actions configured (ie. an empty preset), pressing harder does not cause haptic feedback.

But as soon as even a single touchpad action is created, then pressing harder does cause haptic feedback.

So BTT is clearly doing something here.

11

yes definitely, once you add a gesture BTT enables its "trackpad engine". The weird thing is that it should have always done that.

12

Okay, thanks for taking the time to listen.

Also, I just noticed that if I change the BTT haptic feedback setting for 2-5 finger normal clicks to “No Feedback” then that only affects the “press down” feedback. There is still haptic feedback when I release a normal click.

…additionally, although the labels for both the normal and force click haptic feedback settings in BTT say “2-5 fingers”, they don’t seem to affect 2-finger clicks, only 3+ finger clicks. (Edit: this is not quite true for force click, see below.)

13

Another weird thing:

Performing a 2-finger force click causes haptic feedback only when I have a BTT action enabled for 2-finger click or force click.

If I do not have such an action, then attempting to perform a 2-finger force click does not produce haptic feedback.

But if I do have such an action, then it does produce feedback, and that feedback can be controlled by the BTT setting.

The behavior that I would prefer is rather similar. If I have no action for a certain type of force click, then I do not want to feel haptic feedback for it. In other words, I want haptic feedback for force clicks if-and-only-if there is an action for it.

(Edit: similar thing with 3-finger click, but weirder. I have a 3-finger click action in a folder. If I disable the folder, then 3-finger force-click does not produce haptic feedback. But if I just disable the actions within the folder then 3-finger force-click does product haptic feedback.

Meanwhile my 4-finger click action is not in a folder, but even if I disable it, or even if I disable all of my trackpad actions including the folders, then 4-finger force-click still produces haptic feedback. Something is very strange here.

There are also inconsistencies that I can’t nail down. For a little while I was getting double haptic feedback on click release, but now I can’t replicate it.)