Mouse stuck in window

I have a fairly new install of 11.4, less than a month, with the following issue: The mouse quits responding, sort of. In whatever window I’m working, I can continue to work - play solitaire into infinity, as near as I can tell. However, I can’t close that window by clicking on the x in the titlebar, nor does the panel reappear when I move the mouse to the bottom edge of the screen, nor does any other window become active when I click on it. Ctrl-Alt-Del brings up the shutdown menu, but I can’t select any of the options. In half a minute, the default option kicks in to log me out, and then I can log back in and work for awhile longer. This happens with either touchpad or mouse. I have a fairly robust laptop, HP dv7 w/ 4GB RAM, ATI 4250, triple-core AMD.

I can’t prove a pattern, but it seems that

  1. this has been happening off and on since I installed opensuse
  2. sometimes I can work for hours without this symptom occurring, other times for only a few minutes
  3. it often happens when I wake up the laptop from screensaver (I use an openGL screensaver)
  4. it often happens when I have several windows open on different desktops (frex Blender, Okular for the pdf manual, and Chrome for some online tutorial)

If you have any idea what’s going on, thanks in advance,

GEF

i don’t the problem is that is giving you those symptoms, but maybe we
can track it down by knowing which of things to try changes things:

-turn off desktop effects

-the ATI4250 video card: i’ve not looked to see which driver is best for
that, but you should, here: http://tinyurl.com/37v9y7m

-change screen saver setting to “blank screen”

-check for hints of the problem’s cause in /var/log/messages and
/var/log/Xorg.0.log.old, each line is a time mark, so note the time the
problems begin, and then next time you have control again, inspect the log

-instead of ctrl+alt+del (forget that one, it is for a different
operating system) try ctrl+alt+backspace+backspace (hit backspace twice)
it should kill X and put you back at a login screen

-before you hit ctrl+alt+backspace+backspace hit ctrl+alt+F10, and look
at the log there, near or at the bottom of the list see if there are
hints of errors…if there is useful info there: memorize the screen (or
take a photo with your phone/camera) and tell us about it…THEN hit
ctrl+alt+F10 then ctrl+alt+backspace+backspace

and last, answer me this please: you wrote “this has been happening off
and on since I installed opensuse” and i declare you must the most
patient person i’ve ever iMet because i see you joined this forum in
October of 2008–whew, that is a LONG time with such a problem–so,
teach me some patience, i need a lot more than i have, my question: How
do i develop more patience? tia


DD Caveat
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobiles” of operating systems!

Sorry, Denver D, I should’ve said, “…since I installed openSUSE 11.4 on this computer.”

Yes, I joined the forums awhile back, but I’m only a fan of the OS, not an expert. I’m willing to jump through a few hoops for setup, but then I want to settle down and just USE my computer instead of tinkering with it; I’d like to invest my time in learning proficiency with apps instead of the command line and config files. To the extent that I can do that, I recommend Linux to the many people who’ve never given it a try.

After using openSuSE on two laptops, I had all kinds of problems with this one, so I laucnhed the installer for Kubuntu while I settled in for some research. To my surprise, Kubuntu quickly finished with only one issue. Two revs later that one issue, touchpad support, has grown real annoying, so much so that I usually just used Windows, and I hear that openSuSE 11.4 is great. Sure enough, it installed without a hitch and seems snappier than Kubuntu did, so I’m back.

GEF

On 08/08/2011 02:06 AM, gfagan wrote:
>
> Sorry, Denver D, I should’ve said, “…since I installed openSUSE 11.4
> on this computer.”

ok, now i understand…

>
> To my surprise, Kubuntu quickly finished with only one
> issue. Two revs later that one issue, touchpad support, has grown real
> annoying, so much so that I usually just used Windows, and I hear that
> openSuSE 11.4 is great. Sure enough, it installed without a hitch and
> seems snappier than Kubuntu did . . .

so, i guess that means openSUSE installed without a hitch except for
the mouse problems you describe…did you get a chance to work though my
previous guesses of where to start to try to narrow down the problem
which is the cause for the symptoms you see? (treating symptoms is for
rookies!)

oh wow, look what i just found: http://tinyurl.com/3wtpgmm my QUICK
assessment of those hits is that you are gonna have to look to HP to fix
your hardware (or maybe BIOS) problem…do you have the most recent BIOS??

or, try that same search but the words +solved OR solution added
<http://tinyurl.com/3qzpyvd> and move very deliberately and carefully
after reading my caveat.


DD Caveat
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobiles” of operating systems!

>so, i guess that means openSUSE installed without a hitch except for
the mouse problems you describe…

Well, I’m not sure if that’s an install problem or user error, something I may have messed up when configuring my desktop. As for trying what you suggested, since I turned off desktop effects, the problem hasn’t recurred, but since the problem has been sporadic, I can’t be sure that’s not coincidence. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for the link; I think I have an up-to-date bios but I’lll check.

FYI, just before I turned off desktop effects, I had a recurrence, and this time I noticed that I could spin the cube with my moue as well as working within my blender window, I just could’t select other windows, close Blender from the titlebar, or bring up the panel, so I’m inclined to think that you’re on the right track, that I’m somehow activating a desktop effect by accident, and not knowing how to exit.

GEF

On 08/09/2011 07:36 AM, gfagan wrote:
>
> I’m inclined to think that you’re on the right track, that I’m somehow
> activating a desktop effect by accident, and not knowing how to exit.

or there is a bug in the video driver software, or the desktop effects
software, or the desktop environment software, or or or

or, it is somehow related to bugs in Adobe Flash…do you know if it
ever happened without Flash being active in any browser window? or,
after any Flash crash?

that is, if you boot to a desktop effects enabled session and do not
open any browser at all, do you see the described symptom in the first
hour? second? 15th? etc??

i ask because sometimes i get no response to mouse clicks, or the
mouse disappears when moving around in the browser window…then
shutting down the browser is usually a good ‘fix’…if not, if i open
top and see “plugin-contain” (the ‘container’ in which Flash runs)
existing without the browser (having already been closed) and then kill
the container, i get my mouse back…


DD
Caveat-Hardware-Software
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobiles” of operating systems!