[danielkleinfeld]

Okay, so here's an odd one:

On my home G4, running OS 9.0.4, I installed the Deus Ex demo. About three days later, my Microsoft Intellimouse started having mysterious dropouts---most often while playing Deus Ex, occasionally while playing Unreal Tournament, and sometimes while just working in Eudora, Photoshop, or even the Finder.

What do I mean by dropout? Well, all of a sudden, the computer was getting input from the keyboard (all key commands work normally), but it just didn't hear the mouse. And on the MS mouse, the red light that indicates "connected" would go out.

Occasionally, unplugging and replugging the mouse solved the problem, but most often, I just had to manually reset the computer. Sometimes the hockey-puck mouse worked when plugged in during these episodes, more often it didn't. And in any case, the Intellimouse wouldn't work until a restart (or two).

Two days later, I went into work, where I use a G3, running OS 8.6, and a Contour mouse. And much to my horror, the same thing has started happening! Now, I know I haven't installed anything on this computer recently, so my earlier theory (some Sprockets issue from Deus Ex) no longer holds water.

Both computers are on permanent internet connections---could something have been updated without me knowing? Is anyone else having this problem? Does anyone know what's going on?

Daniel

[Cipher13]

It'd be my guess that A) something you have on both comps has corrupted something the moue needs, most likely a sprocket.
or B) There is something wrong with the USB port you are using - this may not be accurate seeing it is happening with two different computers, but if you have a habit of unplugging your mice a lot, or even just in a certain way, maybe you have done something to both ports...
As unlikely as both those scenarios are, thats all I can think of...

Cipher13

[webhead]

I have seen this happen on two G4's and 1 G3. At first I thought it was my contour mouse on the G3. It would freeze up and i'd have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to work.

I've moved on to an office with 2 G4s. Once again, the mouse freezes. However this time it is the Apple hockey puck.

Guess what's in common with all three Macs -- a Macally keyboard.

Would you happen to have one of those?

[danielkleinfeld]

Hmmmmm---sadly, no, it's a regular Apple keyboard in both cases. I've tried plugging the mouse into the keyboard and the monitor (it's an Apple monitor with USB hub). So, sorry, no.

What's really odd if that it started happening at both computers at the same time, even though the computers have no connection whatsoever.

Daniel

[RT7]

I just got a G4, and I'm have the same problem. I'm using a Logitech optical Wheel Mouse, and it's been going dead for no good reason. I was using the Logitech optical mouse on my Beige G3 and it worked great with a Keyspan USB card. I tried another Logitech standard mouse and had the same problem. Something fishy going on here. . .

[RT7]

I just may I stumbled on to something. . . When I installed the drivers for my Logitech optical wheel mouse, it created a MouseWare utility in my Control Panel. I added a "space" in front of MouseWare, hoping that it would change the loading order of MouseWare with respect to the Apple Mouse, in the Control Panel. MouseWare is now at the top of the Control Panel menu list, and my Logitech mouse has not gone dead.

I added a space == "MouseWare" to " MouseWare"

[danielkleinfeld]

Hmmmm---I have heard of someone using a similar approach for a similar problem. I'll give it a shot, and let you know what happens on the board. The suspense mounts... Down, Suspense, down boy!

Daniel

[danielkleinfeld]

Sigh. Nope---put a space before the Intellimouse control panel, and the relevant extensions. And within minutes, the mouse dropped again. BIG SIGH!

The theory I've heard is that the driver is somehow getting dropped during use, which is why replugging fixes the problem---the computer reloads the drivers. No particular operation seems to cut out the drivers, since it happens in a lot of different applications. Also, my early suspect, Sprockets, now looks blameless---even when I've started the computer and played no games, or even turned off all of Sprockets, the problem still shows up.

So, any ideas?

Daniel

I'm having this same problem, it seems to happen about once a day. At fist I thought it was a loose connection (because disconnecting/resonnecting always fixes it) with the keyboard but now it seems to be a software issue. What are you connecting the mouse to? I'm useing a 3rd party keyboard.

I have a Logitech Mini Wheel mouse AND a Macally keyboard and have also been experiencing mouse failure while the keyboard remains ok.

Lately, I've been trying to get a serial modem to fax with no success and thought that was the problem. The modem is an old SupraFaxModem 288 (which is as fast as one needs for faxing) ; connected to a uConnect USB to Serial device; which is plugged into the extra USB port on the keyboard; with FAXstf 6.0 software.

I've been experiencing a mixture of random computer and mouse
lockups in this attempt... Hadn't thought that the Macally might be contributing to the problem... hmmmm