I have two USB Logitech mice. I have always had strange problems with them.

One Logitech mouse is wired. That mouse often drops any drag-and-select operation. That is, I drag-and-select but when I release the mouse button the text immediately becomes deselected. That mouse also exhibits behavior that is inconsistent with my desktop double-click time. I use a slow 700 ms double-click time. Yet the mouse sometimes acts as though I double-clicked, or triple-clicked.

The other Logitech mouse is wireless, for my HTPC. Since I've owned the mouse I sometimes see weird mouse pointer jumps to arbitrary spots on the desktop. Since I updated the HTPC to Slackware 14.0 (Feb. 2013) the mouse often fails to function until I restart the desktop and X. Thereafter the mouse pointer works great.

Both mice are optical.

Another mouse is a vintage Microsoft USB optical. I've shared acceleration problems with that mouse. The change in acceleration is not a regular event, very much the exception rather than the norm. I never have found the root cause for the behavior. Yet the fact I have to reboot the computer rather than restart X indicates a problem with kernel drivers/modules.

I'm wondering whether the same applies to the Logitech mice.

Or possibly I have defied the law of averages and I have three funky mice.

The only other mouse I have is a generic el-cheapo GE PS2 optical. I never have been able to correctly adjust the acceleration on that mouse. I have the modprobe.d/psmouse.conf option enabled with that mouse because the mouse is connected through a KVM, but I've tried without psmouse.conf too.

Excepting the el-cheapo GE mouse, with all of these inconsistent and not-always-repeatable mouse behaviors, I suspect something awry on my end rather than hardware.

I'm using Slackware 14.0 on all systems, but I saw the same behaviors with 13.1. I do not recall these behaviors way back with Slackware 12.2 and KDE 3.5.10, which includes my HTPC.

Any ideas?

hi I don't use slackware so forgive my suggestions

you may wish to investigate for logitech a package called lomoco

if no such package check out http://www.lomoco.org/

good luck

ps

that is nasty stuff

try swapping hand positions so if you are a righty you make a lefty and see if the same behavious exists
if it changes then you have a hardware fault??

also
http://www.ehow.com/how_8640885_chan...slackware.html

now because I am not a slacker I don't know if your mouse config is still controlled by your xorg.conf

I have a wired logitech and use this


EDIT

mentions of
Option "DragLockButtons" "M1"
Sets a "master drag lock button" that acts as a "Meta Key" indicating that the next button pressed is to be "drag locked".

---only if your reconfig still causes no drag option etc

I would first make sure the optical window area of the mouse is clean. Tiny fibers can sometimes get stuck near it and cause strange behavior.

The wired Logitech may be an its way out. Once the click function no longer works properly, there's not much to do that can save the mouse. I've had an A4tech mouse do this, but no amount of cleaning, even on the inside of the mouse, helped.

The wireless Logitech, because these occurrences are random may be suffering interference on the wireless frequencies used by it. Maybe it is close to a microwave or other powerful EMI source.

The problem turned out to be nominal dust and incomplete contact of the plastic pushbutton stem against the micro switch actuator head. After cleaning the inside of the mice, I spliced a carefully cut small piece of duct tape to the end of pushbutton stems. The pushbutton stems now make firm contact on the micro switch actuator head. The mice are acting like new. No missed clicks, no double clicks instead of single cicks, no dropped select-and-drag problems.

2 members found this post helpful.

I haven't thought of using duct tape to try and fix these issues. I suppose I will try next time it happens.

The (carefully cut) tape extends the length of the plastic stems by a nominal amount and adds a bit of friction compared to the worn stem ends. Just enough to restore the original length of the stems and make postive contact with the micro switch actuator head.

I feel like a new person. The previous behavior had really worn me out.

So then the cause is worn plastic on the small switches inside the mouse. I will try to add this info to the slackdocs wiki.

Update: the tape trick was short-lived. Eventually both mice started acting weird again. The micro switches are just plain worn out after a decade of use.

Mice are only rated for so many clicks, so they will eventually die.

I have used the duct tape hack on the buttons on an old laptop on which the buttons had quit working completely. It worked, but like yours was also short lived.

I arrived at a final fix, still working, by "rebuilding" the plastic actuator (not the switch itself) with some carefully applied globs of quick-set epoxy. The basic problem was to apply a wide enough but thin contact area so that it would not break off, along with a small glob over the actual contact area sufficient to restore operation. A toothpick made a good applicator, and allowing it to setup inverted in such a way that the local gravity vector formed the contact glob.

That was about 4 years ago... still clicking!

1 members found this post helpful.

I presume by "thin" you mean thinner than the duct tape. Seems if the epoxy is too thick that the plastic actuator stem would be extended too far as to always press the micro switch head.

Seems a shame to throw away otherwise good mice.

I am sure the geometry of our various actuators is different. In my case I had about a 3/16" square base area with a central bump to contact the little switch button. The plastic bump had flattened and disappeared with use. Adding a small patch of duct tape raised the bump temporarily, but eventually it thinned within the contact area and the surrounding taped area then would press against the switch body.

As I recall, I scraped the plastic base fairly flat with a pocket knife (without changing its depth much). Then, coated the entire surface and around the edges with a thin epoxy coating to have the maximum available surface contact area. I then touched a small dab more in the center and clipped it inverted into a setting position and observed that the little extra dab indeed formed a rounded little "drop" in the center.

So by "thin" I mean I "wetted" the entire surface area with epoxy, but little enough that it would not run or sag before setting, then added a little extra in the center for the purpose of sagging into a rounded bump.

HAHA! Easy to visualize, difficult to accurately describe in words.

Like you, I really hate to discard anything that can still be made to work!

My mouse has started acting up, mostly the left mouse button. Double-clicking and click-drag have been affected. I opened it up and investigated. To me it seems the dynamics of this Logitech mouse are based on the amount of pressure applied to the micro switch, which is related to the flexibility of the plastic button arch. I notice that the right mouse button is less flexible than the left one due to the overuse of the left button. The micro switch is not worn down.

My solution so far is to insert a piece of old cut credit card with a piece of foam sandwiched on top inside just under the left mouse button to reinforce it and make it less flexible. Depending on your mouse you may have to glue the pieces on and may not need the foam. I used foam in mine because there is a space where these can fit in and are braced by an inner plastic shell ... odd design. It seems to work so far (much better than it was before), but I'll have to test it for a while.

My conclusion now is that the fix helps, but the micro switch is still acting up. Thus, whatever fixes you try will only delay the inevitable.

What seems to work better now is adding some plastic cement or superglue to areas that seem worn down. I can see areas inside the mouse that look worn when comparing them to the right mouse button switch. I have added to these areas (carefully with a toothpick), let it dry overnight, and the mouse is improved again. Hopefully it will last another few months. I can clearly hear a difference in the click sounds between the left and right, so the condition of the switch may be less than optimal.

I won't throw it out in the end because I have a exact replacement mouse. I'll keep this one for parts in case the new one breaks. I should be able to use the right mouse button switch and side mouse button switches to fix the left mouse button switch when it breaks in the new mouse.