Mouse pointer disappears in 2.15 CE

Message

jonyo · #1 Post by **jonyo** » Sun 20 May 2007, 16:41

Live CD save file to HD. Random loss of mouse pointer. Only occurs after 'pute sits for some length (sleep, work) & usually happens once ina blue moon. Reboot & pointer (arrow) comes back.

Seems to be happening more often lately & a bit of a pia... Often difficult to shut stuff down for a proper reboot without the pointer.

Anyway to fix this? thx,

GuestToo · #2 Post by **GuestToo** » Sun 20 May 2007, 20:38

this is in /root/.xinitrc:

#v2.01 hide cursor when not moving... (setup in /usr/sbin/input-wizard)
if [ -f /etc/mousehide ];then
IDLETIME="`cat /etc/mousehide | cut -f 1 -d ','`"
[ ! "$IDLETIME" = "0" ] && unclutter -idle $IDLETIME &
fi

this may have nothing to do with your problem ... is there a file in /etc called mousehide? if there is, you could try renaming it to see if it helps (i don't have that file at all) ... or you could try running input-wizard and setting the mousing hiding behaviour

jonyo · #3 Post by **jonyo** » Mon 21 May 2007, 01:39

GuestToo wrote:this is in /root/.xinitrc:

#v2.01 hide cursor when not moving... (setup in /usr/sbin/input-wizard)
if [ -f /etc/mousehide ];then
IDLETIME="`cat /etc/mousehide | cut -f 1 -d ','`"
[ ! "$IDLETIME" = "0" ] && unclutter -idle $IDLETIME &
fi

yes

GuestToo wrote:this may have nothing to do with your problem ... is there a file in /etc called mousehide?

negative

GuestToo wrote:if there is, you could try renaming it to see if it helps (i don't have that file at all) ... or you could try running input-wizard and setting the mousing hiding behaviour

How's the input wiz work?

Thought I mighta figured out why the pointer was acting up but started another (fresh) save file & the same thing's happening.

jonyo · #4 Post by **jonyo** » Wed 23 May 2007, 22:32

Just bumpin this up if any one has any ideas here. Bit of a PIA & only prob I'm havin with 2.15 at this point.

Everythin is setup nice but when I come back, have to shutdown & start up all over again (takes time whereas ideally I could just continue on). It'd be grand to just be able to continue from where last worked or left off..

What is this hide cursor feature about? Security maybe? I think it's related as i only lose the cursor when the 'putes been left for some time.

jonyo · #5 Post by **jonyo** » Fri 08 Jun 2007, 21:27

Spent s'more time on this as it's still a prob & turns out that I do have a file

called mousehide

in /etc. Renamed it 1mousehide & will report. Still interested in this part "try running input-wizard and setting the mousing hiding behaviour" if someone knows anythin about it.

GuestToo wrote: this may have nothing to do with your problem ... is there a file in /etc called mousehide? if there is, you could try renaming it to see if it helps (i don't have that file at all) ... or you could try running input-wizard and setting the mousing hiding behaviour

HairyWill · #6 Post by **HairyWill** » Fri 08 Jun 2007, 21:48

I think GT meant Menu - Setup - Mouse/keyboard Wizard - Choose type of mouse - Auto-hide mouse cursor when not moving, should be off

jonyo · #7 Post by **jonyo** » Fri 08 Jun 2007, 22:38

Thx HW. Did have a look there; - didn't know that's what GT ws talkin about. Only appears to be an option there of ON or OFF for mousehide - it has been set to OFF so don't think that's the prob.

Airmaus · #8 Post by **Airmaus** » Sun 09 Sep 2007, 22:21

I'm having this problem as well in 2.17.

Mouse hide is set to off.

jonyo · #9 Post by **jonyo** » Sun 09 Sep 2007, 22:44

Hmmm... since my postings here (at the time I thought I was the only one with the prob) I've found out that others also have had the problem & then saw some more recent threads along the same line. I'd have to do a search to find them or find out more.

In my situation, it only happened in 2.15 on a particular desktop (didn't have any probs on any other gear, in any vers pup) & I never did get to the bottom of it though I tried many things; diff mice, fresh start & save file etc.. I might have used a disk that was a bad burn at the time and or may have used the initial release of 2.15 (that had some bugs) before the 'Final' release came out but dunno for sure at this point.

There are more threads about this problem out there that may help but can't say that i've seen a solution.

Could try 2.17.1 (or earlier vers) & prob may just go away. Easy to try out if you're set up to run live cd with a save file.

ps · #10 Post by ps » Sat 12 Jan 2008, 22:04

I have the same problem - had it with 2.17 and have it now with 3.1. Seems I started having the prob since getting a new MB with a dual core AMD cpu. What cpu's do you people have?[/quote]

ps · #11 Post by ps » Sun 13 Jan 2008, 07:47

This is what I found in the KDE Linux list.

"On Friday 26 January 2007 10:27, Marcelo Magno T. Sales wrote:
> Is your video card an nvidia one? If so, there's a bug in nvidia driver
> that causes exactly this problem with some nvidia cards (not all). The
> workaround is to disable hardware cursor in xorg.conf.
> Add the following line in the device section for your video card:
> Option "HWCursor" "off"

I added that line and have not had the problem since

Arvi Pingus · #12 Post by **Arvi Pingus** » Thu 31 Jul 2008, 09:09

Using Puppy 4.0 now for a few weeks on my IBM Thinkpad 390E laptop, I also noticed that my mouse after a while, being back from the screensaver, behaved weird.
The mouse itself is dead, but the mousepointer at the key board is working instead.
The mouse is a PS/2 2 button scroll type and is configured likewise and unchanged since initial installation.
Mouse hide = Off, so that shouldn't be the issue.

Playing around with the Mouse wizard brings it back to the original setting, but it keeps giving troubles after a while again.

prehistoric · #13 Post by **prehistoric** » Thu 31 Jul 2008, 12:44

ps wrote:....
> workaround is to disable hardware cursor in xorg.conf.
> Add the following line in the device section for your video card:
> Option "HWCursor" "off"

I added that line and have not had the problem since

In some versions of xorg you may want: Option "SWCursor" "on". Check the preferred syntax in the commented out list of Options.

I've seen this problem recently with Nvidia boards having embedded graphics. This turns up often enough that I'd like to have a message about looking for it in testing, plus a simple flag in xorgwizard to use a software cursor when it happens. One problem here is that people who know about the fix don't post problem reports.

I'm starting to suspect jonyo's problem is due to something else entirely. One other source of mysterious bugs which become more likely the longer you run turns up in the union file system. Where it is possible to set layerfs=aufs at boot up that has eliminated a number of bizarre symptoms for me and people I have helped.

headfound · #14 Post by **headfound** » Thu 31 Jul 2008, 21:42

@jonyo
I had the same problem, not just with 2.15 but every version after.
I'm pretty sure it was related to the motherboard with an optical mouse because it only happened on that computer.
It used to happen when the screen blanked. The pointer would be gone and as you say, only a full reboot would fix it. Very annoying.

hillside · #15 Post by **hillside** » Thu 31 Jul 2008, 22:21

Do you actually have to reboot to get the pointer back or can you just restart either the window manager or the X server?

ps · #16 Post by ps » Wed 03 Sep 2008, 09:41

It could be a problem with the video card. I got this fix from Richard Pace:

"The workaround is to disable hardware cursor in xorg.conf.
Add the following line in the device section for your video card:
Option "HWCursor" "off"

Let me know if it works!

ps

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