Many times I have had an oversensitive right-click pointer in both gnome and xfce and don't know how to solve this problem.

for example: when editing a webpage in gedit, I right-clicked and cut some text and then went to paste it somewhere else in the document. when I right clicked, the context menu appeared and disappeared and the first option was automatically selected (in this case, the UNDO option).

something similar also happens in firefox and many other applications. In many cases I cannot use the context menu at all because it appears and disappears so quickly.

Any idea how to fix this?

Appearently, you're pressing the right button, moving the mouse onto the first menu item, and then releasing the button. In fact, it's perfectly valid to press a menu button, drag your mouse over to the menu item, and then release the button.

I don't know if there is some setting in GTK+ and/or Qt that causes the menu to appear a few pixels away from the cursor. Otherwise, you should practice keeping the mouse still while clicking, or if you can't, try moving it up, not down toward the menu.

thanks for replying.

I have thought of those things already and tried some remedies such as trying to keep the mouse as still as possible but it doesn't help. And other people that use my computer complain of the same problem so I don't think it is anything I am doing wrong.

Maybe it's a poor quality mouse?

For me it's easy to click while not moving the mouse a single pixel.

Just put the cursor on a blank area and click. Does the pointer move?

no, pointer does not move. I don't think that is the issue. You comment about a poor quality mouse is something to look into.. this might be a driver issue or maybe the mouse was not detected correctly during setup.

The mouse is a Logitech optical mouse that i bought about 5 years ago. I'll buy a new mouse and see what happens.

Did you look very, very closely at the screen while you right-clicked and made sure the pointer didn't move a single pixel?

If the pointer certainly didn't move and the first menu item still got selected, then it's not the mouse.

Your poor mouse is worn out: R-Click gets you a menu, but you need to click again for something to happen.

If this is happening without you pressing the button again then your mouse is no longer "de-bouncing" clicks properly, because it is worn out, and is sending multiple clicks instead of just the one.

Dirt, corrosion, and simple wear & tear will all cause this.

If your mouse is 5y old, I think it is time for a new one, it has probably been clicked a couple of million times, and is due for retirement.

Please let us know if a new / different mouse fixes your problem.

I haven't thought of that, it's possible.