Mouse trapped in taskbar

[rbrown3rd]

Just upgraded from Hardy to Jaunty. Everything looks ok, running an old Nvidia card. Only 1024 res with built in driver but that's ok. What is crippling me is that my mouse is trapped in the taskbar and will only move left and right. Poor little guy just cannot go up to nibble at anything in the main desktop. Is there a trick to freeing my mouse? I have searched without finding an answer. Thanks for any help.

Perhaps this should have gone to the software forum? Should I move it?

[toad]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

Try pressing ESC and see whether that releases it. Sounds like you got caught in editing a panel

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

ESC didn't solve the problem. If I move the mouse toward the top of the screen quickly the cursor will leave the taskbar and then smoothly return without stopping along the way. It is as if gravity is strong in the taskbar and sucks the cursor back in. Thanks for the ESC suggestion. I thought that might do it but no joy there. The cursor actually gets sucked back into the lower left corner of the screen rather than just down to the taskbar.

Update... If I am quick enough and can click exactly as the cursor passes over something it will activate it. So, the mouse is working and the buttons are working but the cursor will not stay in one place getting sucked to the lower left corner of the screen. I have an Nvidia card and just activated the proprietary driver thinking that would solve the problem but it did not. It did however resolve the resolution giving me the full high resolution I prefer. But, the system is still crippled without a usable mouse.

I wonder if it could be related to this bug. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...er/+bug/321444 ? This is getting beyond my abilities.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

I have not been able to use Linux on this machine since performing the upgrade. Using the mouse has become a bit of a video game type of thing. The cursor seems to be pulled slowly down by gravity. If I can match the movement of the mouse in the upward direction I can click on things but it is very tricky. I am pretty sure that this version of Kubuntu was not intended to be used this way. Any ideas anyone?

[dibl]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

It has to be a video driver problem. What model exactly is your nVidia chip, and what driver are you using?

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

i am sure you are right dibl. I started with the built in driver which I seem to recall had the same problem. I am booting the system into Windows now, it is dual boot, to see what the Nvidia chip is. I know it is quite old as is the computer.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

It's an Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT.

[dibl]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

It looks like your card should be run correctly with the ver. 180.51 driver.

If you want to give it a go, here's the instruction:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...4892#msg164892

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

Thanks very much. I will give it a try when I get a bit of time and report back.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

First attempt by following the instructions seemed to install ok but when kdm tries to start it comes up with an error message with a lot of lines relating to an appropriate card not installed and others. I had no way to capture what was on the screen but I will try again and when it comes up will just type what I see on that screen using this computer, a Mac. Frustrating.

When the machine first booted up it went to the desktop in a low resolution mode without the Nvidia driver activated. The mouse gravity problem still existed.

[dibl]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

Because you first installed the packaged driver, you need to do all the steps, starting with removing the restricted modules.

Sorry.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

Ok. I'll give it another shot. At least I have the NVIDIA run file downloaded.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

Went step by step. I ended up with a 1024 display and the mouse cursor slowly being drawn to the bottom of the screen.

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

Is there a way I can go back to the previous version of Kubuntu or is there still hope?

[rbrown3rd]

Re: Mouse trapped in taskbar

I have no idea what I did or what happened unless it was some bug fixes I loaded last night but now my mouse gravity problem is fixed. Mouse is behaving himself but I do not have the Nvidia drivers running. I tried once more to follow the procedure and got the same message about no GPU and/or other problems.

Ok, I am on my Mac looking at the message on my other machine. It says:

Unbuntu is running in low-graphics mode

The following was encountered. You may need to update your configuration to solve this.

(EE) Failed to load module "type1" (module does not exist 0)
(EE) Failed to load module "freetype" (module does not exist 0)
(EE) Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module! please ensure
(EE) NVIDIA(0): that there is a supported NVIDIA GPU in the system, and
(EE) NVIDIA(0): that the NVIDIA device files have been created properly.
(EE) NVIDIA(0) Please consult the NVIDIA README for details.
(EE) NVIDIA(0) ***Aborting***
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.