Problem with mouse focus

English Applications
1

Hi,

I posted this to bugzilla some time ago but I guess this was not the right place to start because it has not been picked up yet. Would anyone here have any idea how to fix this issue I have with mouse focus? This is the text from bugzilla.

Hi,

I have used opensuse 11.2 since one day after its release and have been coming across this issue a lot. I am pretty sure it is KDE4-related, however updating KDE has not fixed it as of yet. I am currently updating KDE4 with the factory repository on a (somewhat) daily basis but the issue persists.

Sometimes the issue is there from boot, sometimes it appears after a few minutes or after a few hours of use. Sometimes it goes away again by itself, sometimes it does not.

What happens is that the mouse does not focus on the active application window. The mouse pointer just does not register in the active window, not on mouseover and also not on click with any button. There is usually one window or plasmoid that can be controlled by mouse and not even switching apps with alt-tab will move mouse focus away from that app or plasmoid. Even if an active window is on
top of the window that has mouse focus, clicking in the top window will affect the focused-on window that is underneath. There appears to be only one way to move focus: if the focus happens to be on the taskbar-plasmoid, right-clicking on an active app will move focus to its window. Of course, after this is done you can not do it again since focus is not on the taskbar anymore. Keyboard is unaffected, the keyboard will control the active window like normal.

In short, when the issue arises only one app can be controlled by mouse until I reboot (sometimes not even then) or the issue goes away again. This could be in
a few minutes, a few hours or never.

Thanks for reading,
Mischa

Reproducible: Couldn’t Reproduce

Steps to Reproduce:
You can’t really reproduce it as it occurs during normal use. There is no way to trigger it and there is not a specific situation where it occurs. However it is clear the issue arrised when:

  1. mouse clicks do not register
  2. mouse can not make another window active/can not bring another window to front
  3. only the keyboard can control the app or switch active window

Actual Results:
As said, it is a general functionality issue that is not triggered (or does not appear to be triggered) by any user action. Mouse cannot move focus to another app at some point and there is no regular user action that can fix it.

A mouseover will not highlight the buttons it is on, and will not change shape to show fuctionality (like, the pointer is in its normal arrow-shape and it does not change to a pointing finger on a hyperlink and it does not change to a cursor when it is over a text field). Clicking will not make the title bar change colour to indicate the active window, only alt-tab can do that.

Expected Results:
Normally mouse focus should follow the active app or plasmoid, or you should be able to change the active window by clicking on its title bar. Mouseover should
highlight buttons/plasmoids to indicate possible actions. Mouse pointer should change shape to indicate there is “something” to be done like the hand-shape for hyperlinks or the cursor for text input.

2

mischa1977 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I posted this to bugzilla some time ago but I guess this was not the
> right place to start because it has not been picked up yet. Would anyone
> here have any idea how to fix this issue I have with mouse focus? This
> is the text from bugzilla.
>
> Hi,
>
> I have used opensuse 11.2 since one day after its release and have been
> coming across this issue a lot. I am pretty sure it is KDE4-related,
> however updating KDE has not fixed it as of yet. I am currently updating
> KDE4 with the factory repository on a (somewhat) daily basis but the
> issue persists.
>
> Sometimes the issue is there from boot, sometimes it appears after a
> few minutes or after a few hours of use. Sometimes it goes away again by
> itself, sometimes it does not.
>
> What happens is that the mouse does not focus on the active application
> window. The mouse pointer just does not register in the active window,
> not on mouseover and also not on click with any button. There is usually
> one window or plasmoid that can be controlled by mouse and not even
> switching apps with alt-tab will move mouse focus away from that app or
> plasmoid. Even if an active window is on
> top of the window that has mouse focus, clicking in the top window will
> affect the focused-on window that is underneath. There appears to be
> only one way to move focus: if the focus happens to be on the
> taskbar-plasmoid, right-clicking on an active app will move focus to its
> window. Of course, after this is done you can not do it again since
> focus is not on the taskbar anymore. Keyboard is unaffected, the
> keyboard will control the active window like normal.
>
> In short, when the issue arises only one app can be controlled by mouse
> until I reboot (sometimes not even then) or the issue goes away again.
> This could be in
> a few minutes, a few hours or never.
>
> Thanks for reading,
> Mischa
>
> Reproducible: Couldn’t Reproduce
>
> Steps to Reproduce:
> You can’t really reproduce it as it occurs during normal use. There is
> no way to trigger it and there is not a specific situation where it
> occurs. However it is clear the issue arrised when:
>
> 1. mouse clicks do not register
> 2. mouse can not make another window active/can not bring another
> window to front
> 3. only the keyboard can control the app or switch active window
>
> Actual Results:
> As said, it is a general functionality issue that is not triggered (or
> does not appear to be triggered) by any user action. Mouse cannot move
> focus to another app at some point and there is no regular user action
> that can fix it.
>
> A mouseover will not highlight the buttons it is on, and will not
> change shape to show fuctionality (like, the pointer is in its normal
> arrow-shape and it does not change to a pointing finger on a hyperlink
> and it does not change to a cursor when it is over a text field).
> Clicking will not make the title bar change colour to indicate the
> active window, only alt-tab can do that.
>
> Expected Results:
> Normally mouse focus should follow the active app or plasmoid, or you
> should be able to change the active window by clicking on its title bar.
> Mouseover should
> highlight buttons/plasmoids to indicate possible actions. Mouse pointer
> should change shape to indicate there is “something” to be done like the
> hand-shape for hyperlinks or the cursor for text input.
>
>
i see you joined the forum in 2008 and have a few questions:

is the problem you now describe on the Asus EeePC 900?
if so, how did you move from 11.1 to 11.2?
if you downloaded and iso for 11.2 did you md5sum check it and also
check the install media prior to beginning the install, this way:
http://tinyurl.com/yajm2aq

if you did not, then do so now, and if you tried to install from
corrupt media start over…and, follow the instructions in
http://en.opensuse.org/Download_Help and those in the new user forum:
http://forums.opensuse.org/new-user-how-faq-read-only/
(i know you are not new, but the info there on how to have a perfect
install disk might be new to you)

if you didn’t download an iso from http://software.opensuse.org/112/en
then tell us where you got your install image…

if, on the other hand you did check the media and you had no errors
thrown during install, please answer:

did this situation begin immediately on install?

or, did it come some days or weeks later?

have you installed the ATI Radeon driver?

are you aware of all the ‘stuff’ going on with ATI’s support of
“legacy” cards? see openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for
Users - http://tinyurl.com/ydggvdw

–
palladium

3

Hello Palladium,

It is not my EEEPC, that one is not on 11.2 yet. It is just an old home-assembled AMD machine. I did not check the iso I used for corruption, I’ll do that.

The issue arose immediately, so it has been going on a long time. I have been busy so instead of getting it fixed I have started to use my work-laptop.

I will read the info on Radeon too, I have a pretty old 9800 pro in my machine.

Thanks!

Mischa

4

Hello Mischa,

Got exactly the same prblm you have… had ?
Please if solved, indicate some direction I may move to… I’m stucked ! :frowning:
Frustrating thing is that this strange behavour started only yesterday after several weeks of clean doings…
Thanks !

5

valid wrote:
> Frustrating thing is that this strange behavour started only yesterday
> after several weeks of clean doings…

your posting leaves lots of unknows, like what happened yesterday
(when this suddenly started)? like:

any updates via YaST Online Updater??
install any new programs with YaST?
one-click installs?
compile and installs?
you adjust any config files?
use YaST in any way?
changed any hardware?
logged into gnome/kde as root?
became root for any reason or action?
turned on/off desktop effects?
shut down uncleanly? had a system freeze? etc??

have you looked in /var/logs for clues?

if you dual boot, does the mouse work ok in the other OS?

when your machine is shut down, wiggle the mouse cord where it plugs
into the machine…(is it wireless, wired, are are you on a laptop
with a mousepad?)

–
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315)
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
posted via NNTP w/TBird 2.0.0.23 | KDE 3.5.7 | openSUSE 10.3
2.6.22.19-0.4-default SMP i686
AMD Athlon 1 GB RAM | GeForce FX 5500 | ASRock K8Upgrade-760GX |
CMedia 9761 AC’97 Audio

6

Hi DenverD,

Thanks for your post.
To briefly answer your questions: all started at a moment I tried to fix a problem with samba unmounting that happend while I tried to restart after a problem of NVideo that I noticed at the time I tried to fix… cannot remember, all a mess… Yes, the mouse is plugged and works well (tried with several wireless, USB…) etc…

Now the best: I gave up this orning and decided to roll back from scratch, so formated everything, and had a brain new install of Opensuse 11.2 from the Net. Done within a couple of hours, and guess what? still the same, cannot even close or move a window with the mouse, very funny hey ??
OK, I give up, I go back to Bill Gates’ bullshit, terrrrribly desapointing !!!

7

This is my second post regarding this issue and I have the same issue.

Every time I reboot my machine I am faced with this annoying “Glitch”. Windows will not take focus. Nor will Alt-Tab give them focus. Clicking on what seems to be the focused window will often click what is under the focused window.

My temporary fix has been to restart XDM using

/etc/init.d/xdm restart

Then every thing seems to work fine. Most of the time.

This is a fresh Install of openSuse 11.3 gnome. Listed are the changes I have made.

  • NVidia Drivers
  • MySQL, Apache, SVN
  • Rhythmbox & Non-OSS Media Support

I had assumed Compiz was the culprit and removed it. I am using gnome so the KDE theory is smoke. Perhaps NVidia? any ideas?

-Kephryn

8

It’s been about a month now. No response from anyone. No clue as to what could be causing this. My temporary solution to restart the display manager no longer works. Don’t ask me why one day something produces one result and the next a different result. No changes have been applied to the system in that interval.

The problem doesn’t seem to be any application that I launch specifically. It seems to be something that is initialized by the system at start-up. It’s not Compiz nor is it related to NVidia drivers since the native setup produces the same results.

Can anyone throw me/us a bone? Anything?

9

After a few months of on and off looking for a solution I have discovered why I am getting the issue. It’s because of my mouse. A pretty fancy gaming mouse. It has really cool features like programmable modes ( with Windows software ). These modes don’t seem to work to well with X.

So the R.A.T’s series mice have a bug with X. Perhaps others as well.

Here’s where I found the solution.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-mouse/+bug/615892

And the solution looked a little like this.

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Mouse Remap"
        MatchProduct "Saitek Cyborg R.A.T.7 Mouse"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 9 10 11 12 0 0 0 16 17 18 19 20 21"
EndSection

I hope this information helps someone. I encountered the exact same symptoms as described by the original poster so I believe they may be related.

I also don’t want to play around with dead topics too much but it seems I already have.

-Kephryn

10

You can forget about bugzilla this is an issue in linux across the board. In suse 12.2 I have done the following to fix the issue:

$> cd /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
$> sudo vim 11-mouse.conf
Press the insert key and copy the following to 11-mouse.conf at the bottom:

Section “InputClass”
Identifier “Mouse Remap”
MatchProduct “Saitek Cyborg R.A.T.7 Mouse”
MatchDevicePath “/dev/input/event*”
Option “ButtonMapping” “1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 9 10 11 12 0 0 0”

EndSection

Press esc and type: wq! to commit the change.

I would reboot to ensure the 11-mouse.conf gets reloaded.

cat