[waffffffle]

I am using a Quicksilver 800 MHz here at work and I have this strange problem. About once a day (although today it happened twice within a few minutes) the computer stops recognizing mouse clicks. I can use the keyboard and move the mouse without a problem but I can't click anything. I am using a Logitech mouse and all three buttons and the scroll wheel stop working. I tried plugging in an Apple mouse and it also has the identical problem. I tried plugging the keyboard and mice into different usb ports, moving things back and forth, but nothing works. The only solution is to restart the computer.

Has anyone had this problem? It doesn't seem to be with my mouse or keyboard since the problem occurs with multiple mice no matter how it is connected (through keyboard or direct). It actually happened to me while writing this post so I now have to restart in order to be able to click my mouse again.

[Madrag]

If it happened with other mice, then I recommend loggin as another user and see if the same happens.

If it does, do the usual system maintenance (fix permissions, etc)

If that doesn't fix it, (and if you have access to), try to use a system in another disk/partition and see if it happens.

If it does, then I would assume it is definetly your OS...

Of course, because it happens randomly, this means you'll have a hrd time to find out if things are fixed or not...

[Madrag]

BTW, forgot to ask if you've installed anything new before that started to happen?

[waffffffle]

Actually this is a fairly new OS install. I installed directly from 10.1.3.5 CDs, installed the developer tools and a few big commercial apps, all of which have caused me no problems in the past.


I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it is NewsFire that it causing my problems. I like the app but it gives me a lot of trouble. Previously on this machine it one day stopped being able to download new feeds (yet it had no problem telling me that there were program updates). I thought the probem might have something to do with my use of a second network card. After trying for a few days to fix it (and some other OS problems) I reformatted and reinstalled.

Then this mouse problem started happening. I have refrained from using NewsFire since I posted yesterday and I haven't had the problem yet. I guess it is time to find a new RSS reader.

[waffffffle]

So it's not Newsfire. It happened again today while NewsFire wasn't launched. I hit ctr-cmd-eject to do a soft reset but as applications were quitting I noticed that I could click again. So some program must be running which is causing the problem. It is most likely not a GUI app because yesterday I tried quitting all the applications with the keyboard when this happened and I could not regain click ability until I restart. I think initiating a logout or restart kills some process in the background which is causing the problem, but I'm not sure which yet.

[Madrag]

have you tried using a fresh/different partition system?

but if you say it may be an app, then it's going to be a hard time to find witch one...

Have you looked into the activity monitor to see if anything is different than usual?