Monterey/Big Sur – Dialog box not responding to mouse clicks

I’ve run into this problem multiple times where Monterey prompts that an application needs access to a folder such as Downloads or Documents. However, when I click ‘OK’ nothing happens. When I click ‘Don’t Allow’ nothing happens. The button responds visually, but doesn’t actually do anything.

Further, I can move the dialog, drag it around the screen, and make it go away, but the actual buttons don’t register.

After searching, a lot of people have run into the same issue. You can click everywhere else, but those specific system dialogs don’t respond. About the only key that works is pressing ESC to make it go away.

I found the issue, at least for my system. If I turn off the mouse pointer tool, myPoint Pro the issue goes away and I click the dialogs and they respond as expected.

myPoint Pro has no issues anywhere else, nor does it have issues on my Mac Pro running Mojave. This seems to be specific to Monterey and perhaps Big Sur. I have no idea if it happens on the latest macOS.

The same could happen with other ‘mouse enhancing apps.’ If you run into the same problem where system dialog don’t respond, turn off your mouse app for a moment, click the dialog, turn it back on.

It’s pretty silly, but better than the frustration of system dialogs that won’t respond.