Mouse loosing ability to focus window.

lord_helmet · n00b Joined: 01 May 2021 Posts: 4

Hello everyone!

New guy here. Got an interesting yet supremely annoying issue I’d like some help/advice regarding. I don’t think this issue is limited to Gentoo as I’ve encountered it using Pop_OS as well. The problem revolves around the mouse intermittently losing the ability to focus windows. The pointer is ok, and I can drag it in between my two monitors but when I click it seems like only the ”active” window responds. Doing Ctrl-Alt out to a TTY and then back in again solves the problem. Yet it tends to reappear at seemingly random intervals again later.

Here is the thing, though. On my main computer I previously used Pop_OS. It had been running completely issue-free since 2019 until I got this very similar problem just recently. I had been meaning to reinstall the computer with something Arch-based (Running Artix and Void on my laptops) and this kind of pushed me to do it and I figured I had to test Gentoo this time.

Yet, here I am with similar issues. Using my Google-fu I’ve been looking for a solution to this problem and I’ve noticed people on various forums describing my issue to the letter going back over a decade. But none of these threads have come up with anything resembling a solution. I seriously doubt hardware issues on this one, as I’m also using Windows 10 on the same machine for all my photo editing software (and flight simming) and everything is working just fine there.

My hardware is as follows: AMD 3900x with 32gb of 3600Mhz memory. 2080Ti (using proprietary drivers). OS on a SSD. Two monitors (3440x1440 and one 1920x1200).I am running xorg/xmonad.

EDIT:
Is it possible that it's the proprietary drivers causing this? I've been tailing /var/log/kern.log / messages / dmesg / xorg log and absolutely nothing seems to be happening to those whenever this bug returns. This is really maddening!

Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

lord_helmet · n00b Joined: 01 May 2021 Posts: 4

lord_helmet · n00b Joined: 01 May 2021 Posts: 4

Hello again.

So. Thought I'd come with an update on this delicate issue. Turns out it "probably" was the darned mouse after all (however the little bugger STILL works perfectly in W10). I tried a cheap Dell USB mouse I got for $1 when purchasing a Dell laptop several years ago. Guess what? It works like a charm. So, I went out and bought a new mouse and I bet you could never guess? Yes. It works just fine that as well.

The amount of hours I've spent trying to fix this I'll never get back though.