mouse cursor stuck at drag symbol (hand) and not usable

[scotty64]

On my Xubuntu installation the mouse cursor gets sometimes stuck in drag mode (hand symbol) and although the mouse cursor moves, both mouse and keyboard are unusable.
Does anybody has the same problem ? Is there a simple way out of it ?
I am wondering if this is a bug or some (for me) hidden screen lock feature.
The only way out of this hang is to switch to another tty and restart lightdm.
The problem mostly appears when having Firefox open and moving the cursor from the Firefox window to another. I may press a button accidentally while doing this, but I am not aware of this.

[ddavidd]

We are now getting the same problem with my computer and my daughter's laptop.

Both newly installed with 12.04
It seems to happen often when working in Firefox, typically when leafing through the bookmarks.
The mouse pointer changes to a hand, still moves but nothing else works except cold restarting or this workaround that I found in Google, but it still shuts all running applications:

Ctrl + Alt + F1
login
> sudo restart lightdm
GUI appears again and asks for logon


Does anyone have a solution to the problem?

[crampi]

Having the same problem with FF 13.0 Ubuntu 10.10. Does seem to involve tabs and/or moving them off or back to FF.

I have been able to Alt-F then Q to quit FF and save the rest of my desktop from a restart.

[ddavidd]

I read in a forum somewhere else that this problem affects Ubuntu 12.04 because it still uses kernel 3.2, whereas some other distributions use 3.4.

Changing to 3.4 sounds a bit beyond my capabilities, I depend on the automatic updates. The new one today is offering kernel 3.2.0-25

Can I ask for expert views of this?

[ddavidd]

Yesterday there was a kernel update.

I now have:
Version 12.04 (precise) (32-Bit)
Kernel Linux 3.2.0-25-generic-pae
GNOME 3.4.1

It just did it again!
As I was clicking through the favourites in Firefox, the mouse pointer turned into a hand and the pointer was gone.
Alt tab to bring windows into focus still worked but no menu shortcuts and the mouse still remained useless.
I had to use the workaround Strg-Alt-F1 again.
I had an instance of Word open in Virtual Box and very fortunately the automatic saving had worked.

So no improvement from the latest updates, please can anyone help?

[ccrs8]

This has happened to me at least a half-dozen times since upgrading to Xubuntu 12.04. Always when clicking on Firefox. The cursor stays as the hyperlink hand no matter where it is moved and does not register clicks. Using the keyboard still works fine, but I can not get the cursor unstuck. I always had to just push the computer's power button to force a shutdown/reboot, but ddavidd's recommendation at least enables me to fix the issue without going to that extreme.

There has got to be a command that "restarts" the mouse, right? That way, when it happens again we can keyboard shortcut to the terminal and then simply restart the mouse without having to log back in and out and restarting lightdm.

[LewisTM]

I have that sometimes on my latpop with a mouse attached but never though much of it since it was quickly fixed by touching the touchpad. Maybe disconnecting/reconnecting the mouse would help in you case? Or connecting a second pointing device?

By the way the shortcut to restart the X server is Alt-SysRq-K.
Maybe one could also map a keyboard shortcut to restart Xfwm4.

xfwm4 --replace

That would not force to quit any application.

[xissburg]

I am running Ubuntu 12.04 in a VirtualBox (host OSX Lion) and I also have exactly the same issue. It happens quite randomly, when I give focus to the Ubuntu window. Got a few updates to install right now, let's see what happens.

[ddavidd]

Ubuntu 12.04, Gnome classic desktop
It just happened again, once again while working in Firefox.
The mouse pointer turned into a hand and would not work.

This time the following workaround worked:
Ctrl Alt --> to change screen and then Ctrl Alt --< to change back
Alt D (since it is a German installation) to open the left-hand Firefox menu
Then use the keyboard to run down the menu and close Firefox.
Then Open Office reacted properly again with cursor and no work was lost.

[Seb71]

See this bug.

You can close Firefox with Alt+F4.