Flickering cursor and related nuisance across applications in Mandriva 2007

GuruPrasad · 12-27-2006, 08:32 AM

Hello everyone,
I am running Mandriva 2007 on a Compaq Presario 2184 notebook. I have a wierd problem, which is turning out to be major nuisance. Here are the symptoms:
1. (less severe) When I open the start menu in KDE, the selection keeps flickering onto the first option (the most used appication), so its virtually impossible to select anything with the mouse cursor (it's a Synaptics touchpad, by the way)
2. (more severe) Firefox 'freezes' consistently, until I (i) click on a text bar, such as the location or the search bar, and (ii) enter some text. When I click on the text bar, the cursor flickers rapidly, until text is entered. This is really painful while using Firefox in KDE.
3. (least severe) In some other applications, when something is elected, there's the constant flickering

I've noticed that these symptoms are most pronounced in KDE, but *almost* dissapear when I'm using ICEWM. Also, ever since the problem appeared, KDE (and less frequently, ICEWM) hangs much more often (coincidence? or some process running in background?).

I'd appreciate any help in this regard, and thanks in advance.

Guru

(P.S. If this isn't the right forum for this question, please do let me know!)

aus9 · 01-01-2007, 02:28 AM

sound like either a poorly configged xorg file or you are lacking a synaptics driver and same diff...

see these that may help...as I do not have your devices

you are looking at a file called /etc/X11/xorg.conf

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=513357
choose the correct architure for the following page
http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2htm...submit=Search+...

GuruPrasad · 01-02-2007, 05:42 AM

Thanks aus9, for the reply.
The synaptics package was already installed, but I couldn't configure it in MCC in this version (2007) of Mandriva. I could configure it in Mandriva 10.2. Through a link that you've provided, I downloaded the qsynaptics package and installed it. Even after playing around with some of the settings, the problem seems to persist. Here's the xorg.conf file:

Code:

# File generated by XFdrake (rev 57713)

# **********************************************************************
# Refer to the xorg.conf man page for details about the format of
# this file.
# **********************************************************************

Section "Files"
    # font server independent of the X server to render fonts.
    FontPath "unix/:-1"
    
    # minimal fonts to allow X to run without xfs
    FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    #DontZap # disable <Crtl><Alt><BS> (server abort)
    AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work
    #DontZoom # disable <Crtl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
    Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
    Load "extmod"
    Load "type1"
    Load "freetype"
    Load "glx" # 3D layer
    Load "dri" # direct rendering
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Keyboard1"
    Driver "kbd"
    Option "XkbModel" "presario"
    Option "XkbLayout" "us"
    Option "XkbOptions" "compose:rwin"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Mouse1"
    Driver "mouse"
    Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
    Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "SynapticsMouse1"
    Driver "synaptics"
    Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "monitor1"
    VendorName "Generic"
    ModelName "Flat Panel 1024x768"
    HorizSync 31.5-55
    VertRefresh 40-70
    
    # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
    # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     50.00  768  832  846 1000   576  590  595  630
    
    # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     63.07  768  800  960 1024   576  578  590  616
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "device1"
    VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc."
    BoardName "ATI Radeon (fglrx)"
    Driver "ati"
    Option "DPMS"
    Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "1"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen1"
    Device "device1"
    Monitor "monitor1"
    DefaultColorDepth 16
    
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 8
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
    
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 15
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
    
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 16
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
    
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout1"
    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice "SynapticsMouse1" "AlwaysCore"
    Screen "screen1"
EndSection

Hope this provides some clue as to what is happening!
Cheers,
Guru

aus9 · 01-02-2007, 07:34 AM

2 things

1) you say you can not config your touchpad....did you choose the correct architure driver....open a terminal and type
uname -a

look for the processor....thats the one you should try to install.

2) looking at the first link....Brian has some more configs in his file......backup your existing one and file save it...eg xorg.conf1
edit the original to include his configs and see if that makes a diff

I do not have this device so can not help...if no luck try posting to Brians link and seek his advice?

GuruPrasad · 01-03-2007, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aus9

2 things

1) you say you can not config your touchpad....did you choose the correct architure driver....open a terminal and type
uname -a

look for the processor....thats the one you should try to install.

2) looking at the first link....Brian has some more configs in his file......backup your existing one and file save it...eg xorg.conf1
edit the original to include his configs and see if that makes a diff

I do not have this device so can not help...if no luck try posting to Brians link and seek his advice?

1)yes, the synaptics package with the correct architecture driver has been installed - it came with the OS, still, I did check. (although, the system architecture is i686 and the rpm's is i586 - that shouldn't be a problem, right?)

2)I copy pasted some of the lines from Brian's config, (all lines which had anything to to with synaptics) into the xorg.conf and restarted the X server. The problem still persists.

I will post the problem on that thread also.
Thanks!

Cheers,
Guru

dhoulder · 05-03-2007, 06:55 AM

Hi Guru...

Did you ever find a solution to this?
I think I've experienced the same problem as you (flickering K menu),
although in my case it happened very rarely and took a while to debug it. Details...
- Dell Inspiron 9400 with Synaptics touchpad (I think the problem is unrelated to the touchpad though)
- Kubuntu 6.06 (Dapper)

I discovered that I could simulate the problem when it's not
occurring by holding down the 'page up' key while browsing the K menu.
This causes the top entry to be continually selected, with momentary selections of other items as you scroll up and down the menu. Is that the effect you see? When the problem is occurring, the screensaver also fails to kick in.

These two observations got me thinking that maybe something was
generating a stream of fake 'page up' (or similar) key events. The
flickering rate seems to be about the rate of key repeats, and it would
also explain the failure of the kde screensaver to kick in.

There should be a program called xev on your system (/usr/bin/xev in my
case), which will report X events to stdout.

I recently managed to get my system to misbehave, and sure enough, xev
reported an endless stream of these events...

KeyRelease event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x800001,
root 0x135, subw 0x0, time 1024182509, (68,132), root

2342,161),
state 0x0, keycode 101 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:

KeyPress event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x800001,
root 0x135, subw 0x0, time 1024182509, (68,132), root

2342,161),
state 0x0, keycode 101 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False

... indicating that X thinks that the 'keycode 101' key is being held
down. I can't get anything on my keyboard to produce that keycode, but
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KubuntuLaptopKeycodes
suggests that it may be the 'brightness down' key combination (Fn+downarrow on this machine).

Ominously, the 'brightness up' key generates keycode 212, but the
'brightness down' key generates no keycode at all, but does change the
display brightness. My current suspicion is that maybe the 'brightness
down' key press does occasionally sneak through somehow and X fails to see the key-release event.

Since discovering this I haven't had any more problems - in my case the event storm seems to be cancelled by typing a few more keys. I'm curious as to where the actual bug lies (kernel or bios I suspect), but it's not a real problem for me now that I know what provokes it.

Anyway, run xev, hold the mouse cursor over the xev window and see what events are being generated.
Hope this helps.
cheers
David