Weird cursor problem

[Alan Corey]

Anybody else see this? It's happening at least 6 times a day, it's a
little annoying. It's happened a few times on my laptop (same 5.7
i386). It does happen without Firefox open but most of the time
that's open anyway so I've only caught the cursor problem without
Firefox a few times. Ctrl and any arrow gets out of it.

I don't see anything in the archives about this. On 5.7 i386 with
fvwm several times a day my cursor changes to the left-pointing finger
arrow that Firefox uses to point to links and clicking on things has
no effect. I can't change the focus, if an rxvt window has the focus
I can type in it. Today it happened when Firefox hadn't been running
in at least a couple hours. If I can manage to kill Firefox that
usually stops it. Today I discovered that ctrl-arrow to change panes
of the desktop stops it, 100% of the time so far. Repaint window,
change cursor I guess. Not a huge problem, just thought I'd mention
it. Just a curiosity.
--
Credit is the root of all evil. - AB1JX

[Philip Guenther]

Post by Alan Corey
Anybody else see this? It's happening at least 6 times a day, it's a
little annoying. It's happened a few times on my laptop (same 5.7
i386). It does happen without Firefox open but most of the time
that's open anyway so I've only caught the cursor problem without
Firefox a few times. Ctrl and any arrow gets out of it.

I remember having firefox snag a server grab like that in the past,
but that was a long while ago. 5.7 is out of support now; no one's
going to dig in its source when two releases have come out since then
and another will out in a month. Upgrade to at least 5.9, or better,
upgrade to 6.0 and report whether it's still a problem.

Philip Guenther

[b***@safe-mail.net]

Post by Philip Guenther

Post by Alan Corey
Anybody else see this? It's happening at least 6 times a day, it's a
little annoying. It's happened a few times on my laptop (same 5.7
i386). It does happen without Firefox open but most of the time
that's open anyway so I've only caught the cursor problem without
Firefox a few times. Ctrl and any arrow gets out of it.

I remember having firefox snag a server grab like that in the past,
but that was a long while ago. 5.7 is out of support now; no one's
going to dig in its source when two releases have come out since then
and another will out in a month. Upgrade to at least 5.9, or better,
upgrade to 6.0 and report whether it's still a problem.
Philip Guenther

It still happens regularly on 5.9 (with all errata up to and including
July applied) as well. I felt that this was quite random actually and
there was no real explanation for it.

This occurs with either Firefox or Seamonkey open, but it will happen
randomly (such as when trying to select text from xterm, for example).

On another note, I also find it strange that there is no X -configure
option; I am trying to configure my touch pad to disable the annoying
tap-to-click feature; I feel this is partially the culprit in my case.

[l***@wrant.com]

Post by b***@safe-mail.net

Post by Philip Guenther

Post by Alan Corey
Anybody else see this? It's happening at least 6 times a day, it's a
little annoying. It's happened a few times on my laptop (same 5.7
i386). It does happen without Firefox open but most of the time
that's open anyway so I've only caught the cursor problem without
Firefox a few times. Ctrl and any arrow gets out of it.

I remember having firefox snag a server grab like that in the past,
but that was a long while ago. 5.7 is out of support now; no one's
going to dig in its source when two releases have come out since then
and another will out in a month. Upgrade to at least 5.9, or better,
upgrade to 6.0 and report whether it's still a problem.
Philip Guenther

It still happens regularly on 5.9 (with all errata up to and including
July applied) as well. I felt that this was quite random actually and
there was no real explanation for it.
This occurs with either Firefox or Seamonkey open, but it will happen
randomly (such as when trying to select text from xterm, for example).
On another note, I also find it strange that there is no X -configure
option; I am trying to configure my touch pad to disable the annoying
tap-to-click feature; I feel this is partially the culprit in my case.

Hi bytevolcano,

Could be, could be not.. I run latest snapshots (always), and have too
seen similar, so below are some silly tips to handle touchpad & pointer
affecting programs, that may be interfering with your daily zen routine.

This is not a complaint at OpenBSD, only a suggestion to test synaptics.
I love using Xorg in OpenBSD and am actually very happy with "my" setup.
Here we go, you may now delete this message quick, no useful info below:

I've also seen an incorrect pointer icon sporadically (quite rarely)
instead of the expected one on my laptop when I moved the mouse over
the with synergy (in ports), and always wondered why this happens. I
enable tap to click in my X session initialisation script .xinitirc:

$ grep syncl .xinitrc
DISPLAY=:0 synclient TapButton1=1 TapButton2=3 TapButton3=2

You can disable this feature by setting the respective variables to 0
in your session start up. Or respectively adding a section in your X
configuration (or part of it) file. For example:

DISPLAY=:0 synclient TapButton1=0 TapButton2=0 TapButton3=0

I am not sure however this is what causes the problem, though. It may
be missing pointer icon from the sets, a program trying to weird stuff
or incorrectly carried information by the synergy application, dunno..

Here are the options to experiment with in xorg.conf, or in .xinitrc

synaptics - touchpad input driver
[http://man.openbsd.org/synaptics]

synclient - command line utility to query and modify Synaptics driver
[http://man.openbsd.org/synclient]

I've actually not needed any X configuration file for a long long time
and indeed prefer to set everything either via command line utilities,
or not bother AT ALL with xorg.conf, due to session loss to manage it.

There is also a little utility to help with touchpad accidental moves
during kbd typing on one of those laptop where it's too easy to do so:

syndaemon - monitors keyboard activity and temp disables the touchpad
[http://man.openbsd.org/syndaemon]

$ grep synd .xinitrc
DISPLAY=:0 syndaemon -i 1 -d

What I "need" (this decade!) from Xorg is to implement internally some
capabilities like those provided by the synergy program. These should
allow using the keyboard and mouse on one machine to interact with the
screens on multiple machines over Xorg internal protocol AND see it on
their respective monitors (don't give me that KVM $@#! nonsense). So,
then we'll not need potentially flawed in multiple ways external tools
for what Xorg should have given oh so many years ago already (no *NC).

Well, whatever, the important thing is that for now, you could further
experiment and try to catch the odd behaviour in X pointers. I guess,
there is scientific method in this, but I don't have the time now too.
That'd be: watch logs, dump stats from events and see what happens by
tracing internally Xorg sections ..should be a way to do it properly..

Hope this helps (or gives ideas), if not, please excuse the "outflow".

Picture of several men at a conference explaining a minor tech glitch.
[Loading Image...]

Kind regards,
Anton

[l***@wrant.com]

Post by Philip Guenther

Post by Alan Corey
Anybody else see this? It's happening at least 6 times a day, it's a
little annoying. It's happened a few times on my laptop (same 5.7
i386). It does happen without Firefox open but most of the time
that's open anyway so I've only caught the cursor problem without
Firefox a few times. Ctrl and any arrow gets out of it.

I remember having firefox snag a server grab like that in the past,
but that was a long while ago. 5.7 is out of support now; no one's
going to dig in its source when two releases have come out since then
and another will out in a month. Upgrade to at least 5.9, or better,
upgrade to 6.0 and report whether it's still a problem.
Philip Guenther

Hi Philip,

In case some program grabs the pointer (and/or keyboard), is there any
way to regain back the pointer breaking any focus lock a program puts?

Ideally, a small command line X utility to release pointer/kbd steals..

Does anyone know of environment variables, and settings to override it?
That would work at the Xorg (lib calls) level and not the GUI toolkit..

Further to the pointer icon topic, there are at least two programs that
grab the cursor when they pop up a window and refuse to release it away.

It is incredibly annoying, Dillo does it, KeepassX does it. It is very
very annoying. I've found a silly work around on this, but want to get
rid of this minor inconvenience. This happens in cwm here particularly.

Dillo is a FLTK program, KeepassX is a QT program, others can do it too.

The pop-up window is typically smaller than their main window, they grab
the mouse pointer and centre it on the popped up window. When you move,
(actually attempt to move) away from it wraps on the pop-up window edge.

As a result this pop-up does not let you cross the pop-up window border.
Usually you expect to visually locate the pointer in the new screen area
you try to move it, and you don't happen to see it. Unless you stop and
look back in that crazy pop-up window, where pointer edge wraps trapped.

To get out of this, e.g. to copy something from another program, or drop
something away from there, you can move the actual pop-up window so that
one of its edges touches over other programs cross the main window edge.

Over that particular outer facing edge of the pop-up window, but not any
other edge touching the main program window (that spawned it), though an
outer edge of the pop-up window you can move your pointer away freely...

Also re-sizing the pop-up to spill over the main program window does the
same, when it crosses out, over there your pointer can get away from it.

That is, in case you have to do something important, like copy-pasting..
From a password manager, typically the primary usage for such programs..

Kind regards,
Anton

[b***@safe-mail.net]

Greetings Anton,

On Wed, 3 Aug 2016 03:36:39 +0300

Post by l***@wrant.com

Post by b***@safe-mail.net

...

It still happens regularly on 5.9 (with all errata up to and
including July applied) as well. I felt that this was quite random
actually and there was no real explanation for it.
This occurs with either Firefox or Seamonkey open, but it will
happen randomly (such as when trying to select text from xterm, for
example).
On another note, I also find it strange that there is no X
-configure option; I am trying to configure my touch pad to disable
the annoying tap-to-click feature; I feel this is partially the
culprit in my case.

Hi bytevolcano,
Could be, could be not.. I run latest snapshots (always), and have
too seen similar, so below are some silly tips to handle touchpad &
pointer affecting programs, that may be interfering with your daily
zen routine.

I am certain that, whilst it is not strictly the culprit, its behaviour
in relation to the double-tap-to-click feature is certainly aggravating
it; I am also thinking this may have to do with the fact that I am not
used to the whole doubletap-to-click paradigm.

Post by l***@wrant.com
This is not a complaint at OpenBSD, only a suggestion to test
synaptics. I love using Xorg in OpenBSD and am actually very happy
with "my" setup. Here we go, you may now delete this message quick,
I've also seen an incorrect pointer icon sporadically (quite rarely)
instead of the expected one on my laptop when I moved the mouse over
the with synergy (in ports), and always wondered why this happens. I
$ grep syncl .xinitrc
DISPLAY=:0 synclient TapButton1=1 TapButton2=3 TapButton3=2
You can disable this feature by setting the respective variables to 0
in your session start up. Or respectively adding a section in your X
DISPLAY=:0 synclient TapButton1=0 TapButton2=0 TapButton3=0
I am not sure however this is what causes the problem, though. It may
be missing pointer icon from the sets, a program trying to weird stuff
or incorrectly carried information by the synergy application, dunno..
Here are the options to experiment with in xorg.conf, or in .xinitrc
synaptics - touchpad input driver
[http://man.openbsd.org/synaptics]
synclient - command line utility to query and modify Synaptics driver
[http://man.openbsd.org/synclient]
I've actually not needed any X configuration file for a long long time
and indeed prefer to set everything either via command line utilities,
or not bother AT ALL with xorg.conf, due to session loss to manage it.
There is also a little utility to help with touchpad accidental moves
syndaemon - monitors keyboard activity and temp disables the touchpad
[http://man.openbsd.org/syndaemon]
$ grep synd .xinitrc
DISPLAY=:0 syndaemon -i 1 -d
What I "need" (this decade!) from Xorg is to implement internally some
capabilities like those provided by the synergy program. These should
allow using the keyboard and mouse on one machine to interact with the
screens on multiple machines over Xorg internal protocol AND see it on
then we'll not need potentially flawed in multiple ways external tools
for what Xorg should have given oh so many years ago already (no *NC).
Well, whatever, the important thing is that for now, you could further
experiment and try to catch the odd behaviour in X pointers. I guess,
there is scientific method in this, but I don't have the time now too.
That'd be: watch logs, dump stats from events and see what happens by
tracing internally Xorg sections ..should be a way to do it properly..
Hope this helps (or gives ideas), if not, please excuse the "outflow".
Picture of several men at a conference explaining a minor tech glitch.
[http://9front.org/img/pleaseexcusemetheoutflow.front.png]
Kind regards,
Anton

It would be helpful if I could get the synaptics driver running first. ;)
The problem is I am unsure what kind of driver my touchpad uses, and
xinput reveals this:

$ xinput
+ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
| + Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
| + /dev/wsmouse id=8 [slave pointer (2)]
| + /dev/wsmouse1 id=7 [slave pointer (2)]
+ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
+ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
+ /dev/wskbd id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]

I feel as if the touchpad is on /dev/wsmouse0 because:

$ dmesg | grep -i mouse
wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0
wsmouse1 at ums0 mux 0
wsmouse1 detached
wsmouse1 at ums0 mux 0

The USB mouse, I suspect, is my touch screen since it shows up as a Fujitsu touch panel as uhidev0 (likely an internal USB connection on the motherboard). So the touchpad therefore must be the PS/2 mouse (pms0) on wsmouse0.

Which is why it would be helpful if the "-configure" option was in X; with a complete config file I can tweak bits and pieces here and there.

Otherwise, my setup works well with fvwm 2.2.5 (part of the base).

[l***@wrant.com]

Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:02:20 +1000 <***@safe-mail.net>
[...]

Post by b***@safe-mail.net
It would be helpful if I could get the synaptics driver running first. ;)
The problem is I am unsure what kind of driver my touchpad uses, and
$ xinput
+ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
| + Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
| + /dev/wsmouse id=8 [slave pointer (2)]
| + /dev/wsmouse1 id=7 [slave pointer (2)]
+ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
+ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
+ /dev/wskbd id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
$ dmesg | grep -i mouse
wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0
wsmouse1 at ums0 mux 0
wsmouse1 detached
wsmouse1 at ums0 mux 0
The USB mouse, I suspect, is my touch screen since it shows up as a
Fujitsu touch panel as uhidev0 (likely an internal USB connection on
the motherboard). So the touchpad therefore must be the PS/2 mouse
(pms0) on wsmouse0.

Hi bytevolcano,

Try these commands and move each pointing device to see which id it is:

$ xinput test 4
$ xinput test 7
$ xinput test 8

On my laptop at the moment id=4 is the synergy pointer over network,
id=7 is the synaptics touchpad, and id=8 is the USB mouse (adaptor).

Post by b***@safe-mail.net
Which is why it would be helpful if the "-configure" option was in X;
with a complete config file I can tweak bits and pieces here and
there.

Well, maybe try with the Xorg log file (verbose) for starters.. dunno.
Here, it ALL just worked out of the box for the laptop (N280 1005HAB).

Kind regards,
Anton

[Alan Corey]

Just to clarify, I see the left-pointing hand, but that's just a
symptom, I can't do anything with the mouse like use the pager or any
other application. Cursor movement isn't restricted to one window. I
get out of it by using the keyboard shortcuts of Ctrl-arrow which
normally jumps to another pane in the pager. So ctrl-right, ctrl-left
and I'm usually back where I started with the problem cleared. I use
fvwm which is the default window manager. I don't know what the
version history of that is but it could be the problem.

Post by b***@safe-mail.net
It would be helpful if I could get the synaptics driver running first. ;)
The problem is I am unsure what kind of driver my touchpad uses, and

Take a look at the mouse stuff in your /var/log/Xorg.0.log, it should
show you what mouse driver you're using. I know what you mean, I've
gone to great lengths to turn off "tap to click" in a few laptops.
With my current Dell Latitude D530 it defaults to off, at least I
couldn't find where I'm turning it off and I don't remember doing it.
I don' t have an Xorg.conf, everything works (almost) perfectly
without one. I am using the synaptics driver and no tap to click. It
was just the default.