Wacom driver keeps disconnecting / touch turns off
Hello,
My wacom driver keeps disconnecting and I have to restart my computer 4-5x a day while I'm working. It doesn't re-connect until I restart my computer. The touch also turns on and off and sometimes stops working as well. It's really annoying because the only way for it to work again is to restart my computer.
I have a Intuos small pro PTH-460 and I'm on macOS Monterey 12.6.6
I have the 2nd latest driver installed. I've worked directly with Wacom support and have manually uninstall and re-installed multiple times, but nothing is fixing the issue. It's really frustrating that no one can solve this issue..hoping other people have the same issue and have found a solution.
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Official comment
Hi Jocelyn,
This is a known bug that we are currently investigating.
The latest driver version should already make this issue less frequent, so please make sure you install it - https://www.wacom.com/en-de/support/product-support/drivers
When the issue does still happen, the easiest workaround when this occurs is to log out and log back in - no need to fully reboot.
Alternatively, you can also open the Activity Monitor app and Force Quit the running com.wacom.IOManager process instead of logging out.If you are able, perhaps collecting the logs may help the driver team find a fix sooner as well - https://support.wacom.com/hc/en-us/articles/10010268158103-I-want-to-report-a-driver-bug-How-do-I-collect-Wacom-driver-logs-
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Same here even with the latest Intuos Pro driver. The latest update has made matters even worse! How old is MacOS Monterey? How can this have not been fixed a long time ago by Wacom?
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Hi, Philippe,
Sorry to read you are also having this issue. Unfortunately there is no solution we can provide immediately, but we are working on it.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
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I wrote another post regarding my similar issues, but also wanted to comment here that the Activity monitor thing is not working on Ventura.
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Sorry, we don't need 2 threads for the same subject so I pasted your message here:
I am copying the title of the other post, because I wanted to push this issue back to the top.
Original post by Jocelyn Mo: "My wacom driver keeps disconnecting and I have to restart my computer 4-5x a day while I'm working. It doesn't re-connect until I restart my computer. The touch also turns on and off and sometimes stops working as well. It's really annoying because the only way for it to work again is to restart my computer."
I am having the same problems on the PTH-660 with VENTURA 13.4.1 and on the most current driver. And, as a result, I feel I have to make the following complaint.
I have been using Wacom pen tablets since the early 2000s. Never have I ever had such issues as I have with the new one, and the most expensive one. I am tempted to simply return it and stop wasting my time and being so frustrated. It just loses connection in the middle of working with it, and, like the original poster said, requires a restart to get it back.
I will use the tricks mentioned for logging out and the activity monitor, but this is ridiculous. Which leads me to ask if you will be ready for the new OS, Sonoma, coming out this fall? You haven't even been able to make it work smoothly with Monterey nor Ventura, so I am in serious doubt that the tablet will even boot on Sonoma at all! I think your development team needs some support, ASAP.
It is utterly irresponsible for you to release a product without proper software compatibility both current and retro. I expect better from a company as established and experienced as Wacom. Your tablets used to be made to last through many updates, I used my last one for practically 8+ years, but I think that will no longer be the case for future models, will it? They will be 'un-upgradeable' after what, 5 years or less? And, I would imagine that they will also be more expensive, as well. Such as shame.
Thank you for your time and have a nice day.
We are sorry you are disappointed. Unfortunately this particular issue is not as easy to fix as we would like. The team is doing what they can to squash this one. We have no interest in keeping this bug alive.
Please have faith and a fix will be out as soon as the team is able to resolve this.
As for Sonoma, it's still very far off so for now we need to focus on what customers are actually using. When Sonoma is out though, I do recommend waiting for us to post an officially compatible driver though or ask us if you are not sure. New Mac OS released usually have quite a few bugs on release that get fixed with following updates, but is always a bit chaotic.
Regarding our products longevity, we typically support them for quite longer that the industry standard (6 years). For example the Intuos 5 (released in 2012) was supported with driver updates until last year.
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Thank you for that response. Sorry to be a little 'snippy', to put it more politely than I was. I am standing by and eagerly await the outcome. Have a nice day.
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No worries. It's totally understandable. I agree that it is a very inconvenient bug.
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Hello Joao,
The issue is still happening at my wacom. Is there already a solution to this?
Thanks, Tjitske
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Hello Tjitske,
This can only be solved by the driver team through a driver update. These things take time as the there needs to be testing and QA before a release to ensure nothing else breaks. A release cannot be rushed or we risk creating 2 bugs to fix 1. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Once there is a new release, I will update the thread to let everyone know.
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Im also having this issue. Its obviously a very serious issue which affects everyones work massively.
Here's some things I discovered … which may help users and Wacom itself - I will update if this if the evidence changes -
1. It seems to be happening independent of which driver you have installed. I hadn't upgraded the driver for a year or so , preferring "if it aint broke dont fix it" approach.- but despite this, on Sunday 16th July the problem kicked off, been dealing with it since. Saying again, this happened on an older driver. Im now on the most recent driver, and tried a few older drivers by uninstalling. And exactly the same problem with the same symptoms is still there. So curiously, and worryingly, something is automatically finding its way into the Wacom running process which is independent of any update. From this thread it seems to be affecting people on different OS and different drivers.
- Force-quitting “Wacom IO Manager” in your activity monitor does not help, this does nothing. It is clearly some other process at fault.
- Switching users is a temporary solution. You need to set up Fast User switching in the menu bar on both accounts. It will remain okay for a limited period of time, then you have to switch users back and forth again,
- Dont worry, the problem is NOT caused by hardware, but creates the impression that it is, because the driver keeps flaking out and restarting, indicating may be a faulty wire or hardware issue. But my setup is solid and unchanging so it’s impossible it’s hardware related.
- Wacom centre app strangeness A) This app keeps crashing sometimes when the driver crashes. B) Updating the driver from the “Update” button now does nothing. The only way is to get driver update from the “drivers” page on Wacoms site.
- Whatever you do DO NOT PRESS “reset setting” after “driver check”, as this will completely wipe all your settings, which as any pro knows can take a day to re-do, including panels etc. BACK UP THESE SETTINGS UP USING the old “Wacom utility” app, before trying anything.
So from my evidence some other force, possibly not related to drivers, has entered the arena and is messing things up for users. This needs to get fixed ASAP it should not take as long as whole month
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The best temporary workaround for this really annoying Wacom bug, which have delivered buggy MacOS firmware for years I might add, is as follows:
1. Go to Applications > Wacom Tablet and press these keys CMD + SHIFT + dot to make invisible files visible in the Finder. Now you will see a folder named ".Tablet", so open it. Now drag the two files "WacomTabletDriver.app" and "WacomTouchDriver.app" as a shortcut to either the dock or the sidebar (here while pressing CMD).
2. Have a wired USB mouse ready to plugin.
3. When the Wacom driver quits again, simply plugin the mouse and click the "WacomTabletDriver.app" shortcut. Now the tablet should work again.
4. In rare cases when this does not work, open Apple's "Activity Monitor" app, enter Wacom in the search field, click on ""com.wacom.IOManager", click on the crossed circle in the top panel, and in the resulting popup window click on Force Quit.
5. Now repeat step 2 and 3, and the tablet will work again.
This approach will spare you a time consuming restart or log out.
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I've tried so many workarounds... non of them really helped. They only take time. Does this one works?
Sinds beginning of the issue, it seems to getting worse and worse.... After years working with the pan I had to switch to the mouse.... And I bought a new pen, because I though my old one was broken!
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Dear Philippe,
Thanks for the tips. I've tried them all, but unfortunately it doesn't work with me. My tablet seems to be completely off now :() I really hope they are going to solve this problem soon, as I need my pen urgently!!
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Hi Tjitske
My workaround is for MacOS only and it should always work.If your tablet is inaccessible then the Wacom IOManager driver is not running or has lost hardware connection. So you need force-quit Wacom IOManager via Activity App or relaunch it by reinstalling the latest Wacom driver - no restart required.
I would also check that no older Wacom driver components are left over in the various /Library directories (i.e. Frameworks, Extensions, PreferencePanes), and reinstall the latest Wacom driver for your tablet. Sometimes it also helps to dis- and reconnect the tablet's USB cable.
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The best solution to stop this is turn 'touch' function off manually, not a great a solution but at least you can use the tablet without having to restart your mac. I noticed this has been an issue for a while hope they come up with a fix soon as its unacceptable to allow this issue to continue like this when their product is being sold on said function that isn't working.
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@Mark McGivern agreed I found this solution also. Turning "touch" off on the button on the side of the tablet, seems to work also. At least so far,
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Like many of you on this thread, I’ve suffered this connect/disconnect bug for several months. My first query with Wacom over the issue was on 1 May, exactly three months ago so I share your frustration over having to endure a problem which, it seems, should have been resolved a long time ago. But I can’t help making a connection with a recent and somewhat similar case affecting Adobe’s image treatment and cataloging software Lightroom Classic. For over five months, Lightroom users were unable to call on its Page Setup command (to choose page size, orientation, etc.) without the application crashing. This was a major impediment to the software’s usability and Adobe customers were howling for a fix. In a discussion thread on Adobe’s Support Community website, the problem was first raised at the beginning of November of last year and was FINALLY fixed at the end of March with an update to… MacOS.
A computer’s operating system is a complex piece of programming which is continuously being revised to safeguard its integrity from outside threats, possibly resulting in occasional bugs affecting normal operations. The Lightroom bug is obviously of a different nature to that of the problems affecting Wacom’s Intuous tablets, but they both involve interactions with MacOS. I’ve no programming knowledge, so I’m unable to make any suggestion as to the cause of our Wacom tablets’ misbehaviour, but I am as hopeful that a solution will come from a revised Wacom driver as from an updated MacOS.
Any thoughts or news of progress from Wacom?
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Hi Philippe Lalande,
I am not sure about the Adobe bug that you are right that the system are complex and the OS does play a big role on how the Wacom driver works and how bugs can or cannot be fixed.
Normally, when the Wacom driver crashes, we have some failsafe that ensures that it restarts properly. Most of the times, this happens so quick that most users won't even realise that the driver has crashed and recovered.
For this bug in particular, something is causing the driver to crash in a way that the Pen Component cannot recover automatically. The Touch component is recovering and this is why the "Touch" message is displayed.
I am not sure what the current status from the Dev team is, but these things take time to fix. There needs to be time to investigate, find the root cause, talk to Apple, make a few changes in the code, issue a build, test that build to make sure nothing else is broken (which often is) and this loop keeps on for a awhile until we are sure that we make can actually squash the bug without create 2 other bugs.
We understand the frustration but please bear with us a little while longer.
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To all the followers of this thread:
This issue has been addressed in the latest driver release 6.4.3-2 (10th of August)
See all details here: https://cdn.wacom.com/u/productsupport/drivers/mac/professional/releasenotes/Mac_6.4.3-2.html
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Hi
I've had the same issue for the past month or so. I installed the updated driver yesterday and it seemed to resolve the issue. However, today the same issue has come back and it's much worse - it disconnects every 2 mins. Is anyone else having the same problem?
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Hi David Tang,
When the issue happens do you see any error messages? Does unplugging the tablet solve the problem or only a reboot?
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So far the crashing tablet driver issue seems to have been resolved for me on MacOS Monterey.
The root cause itself has not been fixed but the driver handler intervenes much faster now than previously in order to restart the driver with minimal interruption.
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Hi Philippe Wiede,
Thanks for the update and letting us know the latest driver helps with the issue. Yes, the crash still occurs and the driver team is still working on it, but the driver should now be able to restart correctly without needing to reboot the system.
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The new Mac Driver 6.4.3-2 fixes this bug..so far...for two days anyway, this new driver update works. No "touch on/off" cycling. If anything changes, you better believe I'll be back.
ANNNND UPDATE!!!
it’s back, the driver fixed the problem for a week maybe. Loving it!
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I had the same issue and fix it.
This issue is related to the wireless system.
You must remove the battery and USB wireless port from your tablet by opening the door behind the tablet.
Then connect it to your computer by the cable and you won't face the issue.
If it doesn't work for you, remember you do not need to restart your computer to fix it
just open the task manager and go to the services Tab find your tablet service
for me its name is WTabletServicePro , right click on it and then click the restart.
I wish it'll be helpful.
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Today i had the first unrecoverable crash since the new driver release...
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Hi Philippe Wiede,
Would you please start collecting the logs and send this to us if it happens again?
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Hi João
the crash is related to the battery
removing it fixes the issue
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The issue you have is different since you are using Windows and this but is only on Mac OS. Check with the support team for additional troubleshooting: https://support.wacom.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402518273943-How-do-I-contact-Wacom-Support-
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I'm sorry to have to report that the new update has not fixed the bug. In fact, it has made it worse! I was relieved when the new driver was released, but being on vacation, was unable to try it out. I'm now back and terribly frustrated to find that it has not fixed the problem at all. The tablet disconnects as frequently as before, reverting tablet settings to their default values and, to make things worse, causes Wacom Centre to start up. Now, not only do I have to reset the tablet to my liking, but have first to quit Wacom Centre and get back to the programme I was using.
Just to be clear, before installing the new driver, I cleared out the previous version, making sure all Wacom files were removed from my computer. I even re-configured my tablet preferences with the new version of Wacom Centre.
I'm dismayed to say that the problem has not been solved and I am back to patiently waiting for a stable fix.
Philippe
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