After I did a fresh openSUSE 13.2 installation (with Gnome 3.14) and installed all updates, I noticed the following usability issue:
When I switch active windows by clicking the window title bar, it often happens that I get stuck with the window moving with the mouse, just as if I held the left mouse button down and were dragging the window - except I don’t, I just simply clicked.
This rarely happens when the target window is already active, much more often when switching to another one.
This seems to never happen with windows that use buttons in the window title bar (like Nautilus, Clocks). When I have the global dark theme enabled via Tweak Tool, all the windows where this happens remain light. The problem occurs with: Gnome Terminal, Firefox, YaST, …
Another common denominator of all windows where this happens is that when clicking the window title bar, the mouse cursor briefly transforms into the dragging hand. This used to be common for all windows in previous Gnome versions (3.10), but now the dragging hand doesn’t appear for windows like Nautilus during a simple click, unless I really start dragging.
It seems to depend on how quick the click is; when I hold it down briefly, it never gets stuck, but when I try to make the click as short as possible, it happens very often.
It happens when clicking with my USB mouse, the touchpad mechanical button or even by touchpad tap. I experienced it on a completely different hardware too.
This problem occurs both when the system is virtualized or installed directly on the hardware.
How to reproduce:
Have openSUSE 13.2 with Gnome 3.14
Open at least two Gnome Terminal windows
Keep switching between them by clicking the window title bar, try to make the click as short as possible
Often the window would start moving around with the mouse, just as if I kept the left mouse button held down
Anybody else experienced this? Is there any way to fix it, or some workaround?
This tends to become really annoying quickly and is the last thing that holds me back from updating openSUSE on my work laptop from 13.1 to 13.2.
I don’t normally use Gnome. But I have it installed. So I logged in to check.
What I see, is that if I click on the title bar, and hold the mouse switch in the click position, then it drags. But once I lift my finger, it stops dragging. I have not tried with a touchpad.
Either you have a funky mouse, or there’s a hidden setting in Gnome to turn on the behavior that you are seeing.
Just to remind you, it is a fresh install. I checked the settings of course, nothing unusual there.
It has nothing to do with my mouse (which works absolutely fine on Gnome 3.10).
It happened on a completely different laptop (different manufacturer) without any mouse too. All it seems to depend on is the length of the click - the shorter it is, the more likely it gets stuck.
**
I just ruled out any HW problem completely: it happens even when using xdotool to trigger the click. Also the default xdotool click duration is so brief that it triggers the titlebar grab being stuck with 100% reliability - but only on the windows I specified like the terminal, not on eg. Nautilus, there it never happens just as I said previously.
This confirms my suspicion that click duration is the triggering factor.**
sleep 2 && xdotool click 1
One more note: Pressing Esc releases the window. Also it never happens anywhere else than on the titlebar of the windows I specified. I never saw it happen on a web page for example (where I would start selecting text by dragging); but the titlebar of Firefox does it.
Please read again my first post. It happens only under well-defined circumstances, specified by the window type and click length. It obviously has nothing to do with hardware or any settings, because another window type is unaffected.
If you have openSUSE 13.2 with Gnome 3.14 as I do, could you please try the steps to reproduce I wrote in the first post and let me know what happens? And please try with the xdotool command too if the problem doesn’t occur (you need to install it first: “sudo zypper in xdotool”).
I actually repeated most of that before I posted the first time. I opened two Gnome terminal sessions, and used the mouse click on title bar to switch between them. Hmm, I did not try to make it as quick as possible. So I have retried doing that. I still am not seeing it.
This is the first login of my test user to Gnome, so all settings are at default for a new user.
I haven’t tried “xdotool”. If I have time, I’ll try that later.
Recently, I have noticed something similar happening with middle-click to open a new tab in firefox. It seemed to be a defective mouse. I replaced the mouse, and it became less frequent, though it occasionally happens (very rare with the new mouse).
I still have that old defective mouse (a logitech unified wireless mouse). So I plugged that into the system running Gnome. I still could not reproduce the problem. But then it was probably middle click that was defective on that mouse, not left-click.
Hmm, yes, “xdotool click 1” is doing as you describe. But I am not seeing that with either a generic Dell mouse or with the logitech unified mouse that I tried.
Hi
Tried to duplicate on SLED 12 and Tumbleweed, I see the hand appear on left click, but could not get it to remain present if I released the mouse or touchpad buttons.
Maybe check the gsettings, this is what I have on Tumbleweed, how does it compare on 13.2;
Some parts of the gsettings key structure are different (missing), but those that are present have the same values as what you listed.
**I tried installing Tumbleweed, got Gnome 3.16 there and the problem is not present. **
However, I don’t want to use Tumbleweed on this machine, I depend on it’s reliability quite a lot. I guess I will wait for next release if I can’t get this solved. It is a minor problem, but annoying enough to make me postpone the update.
Different mouse is not a solution, because:
my mouse is very good and reliable, it’s more like a “gaming mouse”, maybe that is the reason I’m able to make such short clicks with it; furthermore I’ve shown it is not a hardware problem, also it doesn’t happen on Tumbleweed
it is clearly depending on the click speed, and happens with touchpad too (which I use often), thus depending more on my clicking habits than the mouse itself
I experience this issue all the time and finally had enough time to look up this thread, which doesn’t appear to be resolved. It’s annoying because you never know when it’s going to happen. Fortunately, pressing the ESC key will release the window and cause it to jump back to it’s original location.
Had the ‘sticky window’ experience too, with 13.2 and KDE. I found that it happened when the mouse was just below the title bar. Have not seen this behavior since moving to openSuse 42.1.
