Mouse issue

[Peter Hutterer]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 05:10:47PM -0700, John Ettedgui wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 6:22 PM, Peter Hutterer
> <peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 05:02:46PM -0800, John Ettedgui wrote:
> >> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Peter Hutterer
> >> <peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> >> > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 10:57:48AM -0800, John Ettedgui wrote:
> >> >> Hello everyone,
> >> >>
> >> >> I have had a small issue for some time with my mouse and need some help :)
> >> >>
> >> >> Basically sometimes, something bad happens (what?) and then the mouse
> >> >> keeps the focus on one application.
> >> >> For example if I am in Firefox and the mouse works there, I cannot
> >> >> click on anything in the task bar, or even if I alt-tab to konsole the
> >> >> mouse will not work there. If I right click in the console, it will
> >> >> behave the same way as if I was right clicking in Firefox.
> >> >> One "temp fix" is to right click in the application, then right click
> >> >> in the systray on the same application then I can click on another
> >> >> application and so on...
> >> >> This issue is usually fixed by reinstall Xorg's evdev and then restarting Xorg.
> >> >
> >> > this is almost certainly a stuck grab. If FF has an active grab, no other
> >> > application can receive pointer events for the duration of the grab.
> >> > You don't actually need to reinstall, usually restarting X is enough. In
> >> > fact, making the FF window unviewable will break the grab too (e.g.
> >> > minimising it)
> >> >
> >> > This may be an application issue or an issue with the server. To figure out
> >> > what exactly happens, we'd need a reproducible test case - stuck grabs are
> >> > notoriously tricky to debug.
> >> >
> >> > Cheers,
> >> >  Peter
> >> >
> >> Hello Peter,
> >>
> >> in the past I believe just restarting Xorg was not enough, but I'll
> >> try that again next time and see.
> >>
> >> What do you mean by reproducible? Since this *seems* random it is
> >> quite hard for me to offer any repro.
> >
> > Usually, with stuck grabs we need to have a look at the protocol stream when
> > the grab activates and the events afterwards. That can then be compared
> > against the same stream from an older X server release that didn't exhibit
> > this problem to figure out what changed. Since the protocol stream results
> > in thousands of lines of output even for a short duration of the app, having
> > it run for ages often isn't an option. Also, monitoring the protocol slows
> > the application down, sometimes resulting in the bug not appearing when you
> > monitor the app.
> >
> > So we need you to help us find a way how to reproduce the issue reliably.
> > Since it is a grab, it's likely caused by a popup or dropdown menu or
> > even scrolling. If you take more attention to your actions in the next few
> > days, you might be able to recognise a pattern that triggers the bug. Then
> > you can start poking at FF to intentionally reproduce it.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >  Peter
> >
> 
> So I still don't know what I did, but I got that problem  yesterday as
> soon as Xorg was started, with only KDE and Konsole started.
> To fix it I really had to reinstall evdev a simple restart of Xorg would not do.

I really really wonder what could cause you to have to reinstall evdev.
Evdev doesn't write any files, so there's no reason it should be different
the second time round.

> Do you think that could be more of a distribution issue? I run Arch
> Linux, but I don't have that issue on another Arch Linux box...

It could be a device issue actually. Have you tried using the same device on
the other box?

Cheers,
  Peter