mouse click issues in linux

[VJ]

Hello,

I've been having a lot of issues with mouse clicks... It occurred first in a new installation of Ubuntu/Kubuntu, where the mouse still moves but mouse clicks and mouse over events are not recognized. Restarting xorg (logout/login) brings back full functionality, but it may just be temporarily. So I decided to install Linux Mint, as the problem did not occur there. Now, since a few days, the problem has also surfaced on Linux Mint (17.3, Rosa, using Cinnamon desktop).
When googling it, I see people describing the same problem since back in 2010, with varying causes and solutions. For some it got solved by updating some xorg...edev library, others needed to (re)install inputattach, others needed to disable middle mouse button emulation while finally some had to switch the high dpi setting on logitech mouse.

The mouse is a Logitech MX Lazer (wireless usb), but I have no other mouse to check with. I have tried all of the above fixes, but to no avail. The mouse supposedly supports high dpi, but the logitech applet I installed claims that it is not adjustable.

I'm a bit at a loss, as I don't even know which linux would work.

Any thoughts?


Jörg

[VJ]

No suggestions?
I moved away from Kubuntu, suspecting a problem with KDE, but I have the same with Mint, which uses the Cinnamon environment.

The only thing left is to try some BSD variant... The computer is mainly used for simple office use (web browsing, open office, mail, ...), so in a way it does not matter to the user what the OS is, but it should work stable enough....

[UtwigMU]

I never encountered this issue with redhat classroom (generic PCs) or redhat/centos/opensuse on Thinkpads.

Have you tried with a different mouse? Some generic wired one?

[cjolley]

Does the mouse work in windows?
I have that same mouse and had weird problems with it for a while. The fix was to move the mouse usb dongle to a front port on the computer.
Somehow the metal case of the computer was blocking the signal.

[VJ]

Have you tried with a different mouse? Some generic wired one?

I did not have one laying around. Next time I will try with one.

Does the mouse work in windows?
I have that same mouse and had weird problems with it for a while. The fix was to move the mouse usb dongle to a front port on the computer.
Somehow the metal case of the computer was blocking the signal.

The mouse works fine in Windows. I experienced a similar issue with a wireless keyboard with trackpad: it sometimes stopped working. Putting the dongle on an extension cable solved it. I later read that close vicinity to USB3 ports may be a problem for some dongles, as the frequencies oof USB3 interface interfere with the 2.4 GHz frequency of the dongle.

[cjolley]

...the frequencies oof USB3 interface interfere with the 2.4 GHz frequency of the dongle.

Interesting. Guess where my dongle was plugged in on my computer when it acted up.

[VJ]

In my case, it was plugged it right next to the USB3, and that was enough to give issues.

Ok, back to the linux problem: it occurs also with another mouse.
The behaviour is as follows:
- mouse movement is ok
- mouse-over events (e.g. changing the cursor when going over a window border, showing that something is clickable) stop working
- click events (left and right) stop working

Pressing ctrl+alt+del brings up the logout dialog, where I can select logout using the spacebar. After logging back in, the problem may or may not be solved. Sometimes it requires multiple logouts to make it work. I have this issue now with all linux distributions I tried, although it did not always appear immediately: the current Linux Mint worked fine for several months. No changes to hardware were made. Most distrbibutions I tried are Ubuntu based though, perhaps I should try another type... but which?

[UtwigMU]

Have you tried on different computer?
Have you tried windows on the same computer (just to make sure, hardware is OK).

[VJ]

Same computer with Windows gives no issues...

[VJ]

A better diagnose!

When the system boots, it is set to log in automatically. If, after it logs in, you do not move the mouse for a few minutes, the problem never occurs. The problems is very likely to occur when you start using the mouse immediatly when you log in. So as a temporary workaround, we just have to wait a few minutes before using the computer (have not yet established a minimum time needed for the problem not to occur). This most likely means it is related to some initialization of the mouse or its driver.

Jörg

[cjolley]

If you can find out what needs to load maybe you could do it with and onboot cron job.
We used to have to do this on our database servers because mount ran before the network was initialized preventing the mounting of network shares (for backup!) without human intervention.

[VJ]

Not sure how to start on figuring out which is the one that is causing the problem... but at least the computer is usable again.

[UtwigMU]

You could install another desktop environment (is it Cinammon now?) and select different session to narrow down the issue.

Then you could go to runlevel 3 (init 3 or systemctl isolate multiuser target), go to full runlevel and identify which processes are started by DE. Then you could kill processes in top or htop and see if they make difference.