KVM mouse problem

agrippa_cash · Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2003 6:51 pm Post subject:

I am still having the same problem as well with a PS/2 mouse. I have a Belkin Omniview and my mouse wigs out every time I switch back and forth. I have tried killing X, restarting KDM, not touching the mouse when I switch, typing a bit before I use the mouse, and I tried manually editing the POINTERS secion, per Belkin's website (X wouldn't start).

bdemore · n00b Joined: 22 Oct 2002 Posts: 67

This exact damn problem is killing me as well, has anyone found an answer?

phunni · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:27 am Post subject:

The only solution I have found is to change the mouse protocol (see above). The downside to this is that I have to live without the benefits of my scroll wheel, but at least everything is functional and useable...
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haz3l · n00b Joined: 11 Dec 2003 Posts: 39 Location: San Francisco

I have a Belkin KVM switch as well.. When I switch to my gentoo box, the mouse either dies or flickers (its optical). Besides the ctl+alt'ing out of X, I've found that banging the mouse lightly against the pad brings my mouse back to life... ^^ kinda weird but.. *shrugs*

molander · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 9:48 pm Post subject:

I have the omni view 4 port KVM as well and have experienced everything that has been discussed so far.

The only thing that I can think of is that when the KVM switches to another computer, the previous system is told that there is a standard 2 button mouse connected. When you switch back you have a 3 button - scroll mouse connected and X thinks you have a standard two button. Unfortunately it doesnt seem to redetect the mouse and you are stuck until you switch consoles or restart X.

It seems like we need to find a way to force X to use a specific pointer and not to change it. If I remember correctly mine also had a problem with windows XP and USB where if I attached to the XP box via USB and switched back and forth XP would lose the scroll wheel. When I contacted tech support at belkin the of course said this was a known issue and I should just use PS2. Punks.

I will give X another shot tonight.

senderap · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 10:14 pm Post subject:

Same happens to me whenever I have anythin except a standard PS2 mouse selected. It doesn't matter what distro SUSE, RH< Fedora,Debian,Gentoo. I've also switched KVMs.
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banadushi · Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 2:05 am Post subject:

If you have a power adapter for your KVM you need to make sure you kepp it plugged in, If you do not have a power adapter then you are SOL. The reson is when you plug a mouse into the PS/2 port, it expects to get a signal back from the mouse. A KVM with the power adapter will emulate this, and the systme will always think it has a mouse attached. X however down not poll the mouse port, so if it comes up with a mouse it assumes it has a mouse, and never checks again. So when the KVM changes and removes the mouse from that system, the hardware know's there is no mouse there and kinda shuts off the port. Switching the VT causes X to do some redetection somehow, but to do it right you need to swtich VT's umplug the mouse from the KVM, plug it back in, then switch back to the VT with X on it. The mouse will now work as normal.

Note: although the power adapter may be plugged in, it may not fix the problem. At work we have Belkin POS KVM's and they never work, they are glorified switchboxes. You need a real KVM.

phunni · Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:02 am Post subject:

I do also have a (much less annoying) problem when I switch to a windows machine: I am scrolled about half way down the page

So, this isn't a Linux/X thing - all GUI systems seem to struggle
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plate · Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:47 am Post subject:

Absolutely. I'm having this problem between BeOS, XP, and Xfree86 on a variety of OSs/kernels. Interesting idea about the power plug, by the way. My cheapo non-Belkin KVM switch doesn't even have one (!), but I could try putting in batteries and see if that helps...

Interestingly enough, I can usually fix the mouse freeze in XFree86 by toggling the virtual consoles (as described by others earlier in this thread), but only in a 2.4 kernel environment - <ctrl-alt-F(n)> doesn't help at all when running 2.6 kernels.

phunni · Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:51 am Post subject:

I have found that switching virtual consoles makles my colours go all screwy. This is probably an issue with either my graphic card (ATI 9800 Pro) or my monitor.

Either way - I can live without the use of the scroll wheel; this seems the least problematic fix
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MannyL-NJ · n00b Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 5

ampedover · n00b Joined: 18 Dec 2003 Posts: 12 Location: San Diego

Running 2.6 kernel with Belkin Omniview 4-port switch. Have all the symptoms described in this thread. Also have RH7.2 and WinXP machine which don't exhibit this problem.

I believe this problem is a kernel USB config issue and possibly XFree86. Have not found resolution yet....

ampedover · n00b Joined: 18 Dec 2003 Posts: 12 Location: San Diego

The unplugging and replugging of the mouse seems to fix mine. This may be along the lines of the previous comment about have a power supply connected.

There's obviously some signal lost when switching. I'm guessing the power supply connected must perserve this as well as unplugging then replugging getting that signal back.

Still doesn't explain why my RH7.2 machine doesn't have this problem though...

kaji · Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 10:36 pm Post subject: Spacific Devices

I am curently using a Belkin Omniview E with a Logitech mouse and I have had this problem with Redhat, Fedora and now Gentoo. I have always just switched to a terminal and back again but i fugured i could fix this in Gentoo but this is the one think i can not find a fix for.

I have tried replacing the mouse, however all I have are Logitech mice. I have tried all nature of Logitech mice though (optical, ball, usb, ps/2, etc).

I have found that if I change from and to my gentoo box quickly enough the mouse does not get messed up, however this does me or anyone else little good. This lends proof to the power issue, however I do not have the proper power supply to confirm.

I have also found, more or less by mistake, that if I use the PS/2 driver the mouse is not effected, however I lose my scroll ability. This fix has been posted before, however this leads me to believe that the driver/Logitech in conjunction with the Belkin or Belkin based KVM switch may be the problem.

After checking this out with Belkin i found that they sead it was a Omniview E specific problem, I would quote the page but I can not seem to find it again. Trendware (a Belkin related company) was completely useless (webpage is full of broken links). It may be the chip used in the Omniview E that is the problem as well.

Does anyone know how the IMPS/2 driver works? Could it be more sensative to connection loss then PS/2?

I have noticed that most of us have Belkin Omniview's so I offer that we all compare our divices in an effert to sort out why some people are having this problem and others are not.

Belkin Omniview E 4-port KVM F1DB10FP V-E1.0
Logitech Mini Wheel Mouse (all i can tell you is that it is silver) w/ USB to PS/2 converter
IMPS/2 Driver

phunni · Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2004 7:57 am Post subject:

With a 2.6 kernel I cannot fix this problem even by switching terminals - even restarting X does not fix the problem.

Only a reboot does...
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rich0 · Developer Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 163

I got my KVM a long time ago (a Belkin - no surprise there...). I remember tring to get it to not hang when switching back to linux, and I discovered the switching consoles trick. I also had various degress of luck with this program that I got from somebody else online:

rich0 · Developer Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 163

After doing some searching, I found that using the module option proto=bare on the psmouse kernel input device module fixes the problem, but disables the mouse wheel.

Some folks aparently have had some luck with the kernel module option resetafter=1, but that didn't help me at all.

In theory you don't need psmouse compiled as a module - I think psmouse_proto=bare should also work as a kernel boot option.

Hopefully this will help someone else.

I'm sure I'll keep hacking away at it, but I'll live without the wheel for now...

phunni · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 9:40 am Post subject:

Please elaborate. I'm not using a kernel module for the mouse at all as far as I'm aware. How would I go about trying this?
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Xiderpunk · Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 11:56 am Post subject:

Same problems as mentioned here with a Belkin Omni-Cube 2-Port. As above the only 'fix' I have found is to unplug the mouse from the cube, wait a couple of seconds then plug it back in.

Definately not ideal..

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rich0 · Developer Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 163

duhblow7 · n00b Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 37

i was having a similar problem and i was able to find a solution. i have a belkin omnicube 4 port. when i would switch between linux and windows and i came back to X the only problem was the mouse scroll no longer worked. i tried changing to console (control+alt+F2) then switching between windows and linux but then switching back to X (control+alt+F7) but that didn't fix the mouse scroll. i tried unpluggin the mouse from the ps2 port on the belkin kvm but that didn't fix the mouse scroll. my mouse scroll was affected even if i switched between the kvm very quickly. my fix was to recompile the kernel with ps2 mouse support as a MODULE. add 'psmouse' to the /etc/modules.autoload/kernel-2.6

ashak · n00b Joined: 19 Mar 2003 Posts: 11

I just setup a new Gentoo box for my boss, he wants to try and move everything he does over to Linux... Needless to say, when I hooked his machine up to his 4 port Omnicube, after switching away to a windows machine and then back, the mouse went nuts. I read through this whole post and realised it didn't come up with a complete solution... However, in another post, I found something that said add

chovy · Guru Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 453

dtor · Guru Joined: 19 Jan 2004 Posts: 461 Location: Indiana, USA

You do not really need to reboot to restore the mouse, doing: