My trackpad and keyboard keep freezing

Hey there.

So... that's not cool. The "Black and White picture of the mouse" means that your Mac can't find a mouse or keyboard. If you were to get this error on an iMac, that's one thing, but to get one on a MacBook, that means you are dealing with a hardware issue. Potentially. There is a change that it could be the firmware acting up (Firmware is the messenger between Software and Hardware). So here's what I would suggest...

Start by resetting the NVRAM. The NVRAM keeps pieces of important data like Screen Brightness, Volume, Startup Disk, Time Zone etc. To reset it, shut down the MacBook, and then press the four keys: CMD+ALT+R+P. Then, while holding these keys, press the power button. Hold these keys down for 30 seconds. You may see the Apple Logo multiple times while holding these keys from the Mac restarting.

Reset the SMC. This little guy controls the power of your MacBook: whether it's plugged in, whether it's using battery power, whether it needs to lower the performance of the MacBook to charge the battery faster, etc. To reset this, shut down your MacBook. Makes sure the power adapter is NOT connected, or it will not reset. Then, on the left side of the keyboard, press and hold the three keys: SHIFT+CONTROL+ALT. Then, press and hold the power button. Hold these four keys down for a good 30 seconds to ensure that it resets.

Make sure the Keyboard still works. There are multiple ways to check this, but the easiest is to hold ALT while starting up. If multiple drives appear on the screen (or even just Macintosh HD), then the Mac can detect the keyboard. Plus, in this manager, you will have a mouse. Test the trackpad here to see if it still works.

Run Apple Diagnostics. If all fails, try running this. Restart your MacBook. While starting, press and hold D on the keyboard. You will eventually see a spinning globe and text that says "Starting Internet Recovery." Click on "Choose Network," choose your network, enter the password of your router, and hit return on the keyboard. Eventually, you will see some text letting you know that Apple has to check your MacBook with the internet to test it. Click "I agree" and let the test run. They shouldn't take very long. Once complete, it will show you the errors encountered if any were detected.

Reinstall macOS. If you do all of these things, and you pasts the test, then macOS is acting up. Start up your Mac while pressing CMD+R. This will get you into Recover HD. If it doesn't, press and hold ALT+CMD+R to boot from the Internet. Once loaded, choose your user (if it asks) and enter the password. Choose "Reinstall macOS" and continue. Choose your drive (probably Macintosh HD) and let it reinstall.

If you still have issues, your hardware may be shot. But try these tips first, and see what happens after that.

I've had this problem too.

The SMC reset usually works to get the trackpad working again, but not always and sometimes not for long. It is also a pain to do when you are in the middle of something. I have also done the NVRAM reset a few times with similar results.

What seems to have worked for me (so far - touch wood) is to switch web browser and stop running WhatsApp in the background.

I did have WhatsApp starting from login. Since various members of my family use it as the main way to keep in touch it is nice to have it immediately available. However, my phone is generally close at hand too, so it is not too big a loss to keep it turned off until I want to use it.

I noticed that the trackpad freeze usually happened when I was browsing the web using Safari. This isn't definitive, after all this is probably when I use the trackpad most given the way I use my Macbook. However, it did make me wonder whether Safari was the problem so I started using Chrome as my default browser which I already had installed to access some content that was not compatible with Safari.

So far this seems to have made a big difference. Not perfect, but many fewer problems.