I’ve been having a serious issue with phantom clicks on a laptop, to a point is nearly impossible to work on a desktop.
At first I assumed it was something related with a bluetooth daemon call that kept returning an error on startup. I forced access to a CLI and managed to uninstall the bluez package but the issue persisted.
I assumed then it was an issue with the mouse itself but after unplugging it completely, using the touchpad had the same behaviour. I also tried tweaking the mouse settings, to no difference.
Finally, I tried booting into Windows, as this machine has a dual boot, and there both mouse and touchpad report no erratic bahaviour.
After a few online searches, I found similar issues reported but back in 2014, mostly related with kernel drivers, which by now must be solved, as the system initially didn’t had this issue, with a fresh install.
The only non-repo app the system has is Zoom and, again, it didn’t started having this issue when installed.
Can someone spare some advice on this?
My temptation is to just do a fresh install but as I once read somewhere “we don’t do that here”. :)
The distro being run is Mint, on a generic Intel based laptop.
Been playing with
.xbindkeysrc?I highly suspect the culprit is the touchpad. I have a pretty modern ASUS Zenbook laptop and its touchpad has horrible palm rejection on Linux, but works just fine on Windows. I often move the cursor to a point where a click wouldn’t do anything, like the bottom panel in KDE Plasma, or just outright disable it for that session. My guess would be that ASUS is sending nonstandard signals to the OS which is then misinterpreted by poor libinput. My next laptop will definitely be a Framework or Tuxedo, just because of this annoyance.
I’ll try to deactivate the touch pad, via software. But if that was the case, for the start, this behaviour would manifest. It started randomly, after a few weeks of use.
Two things you can do to see if it is software/config related:
Test a live USB of the same Mint version.
Create a new user and log in to that account and test it.
The mouse randomly clicking is noticeable already at the user log in screen, so I’m going to risk creating a new account will retain the strange behaviour.
You did manage to make me think there are two DEs on the machine and, maybe, by some weird event, there is an overlapping conflicting mouse controller.
Booting from a thumb drive is going to be very useful and I thank you for that suggestion. If the latest ISO running live replicates this behaviour, then there is the possibility there is a bug I can report.
I don’t have a solution for you. Just wanted to cheer you up a little with my experience in a similar situation. In my case those phantom clicks and mouse movement were from a wireless mouse my kid uses which he was fiddling with like it’s a fidget in another room thinking he has turned it off.
Annoying but cute. I’m very careful with making sure the correct dongle is inserted in the computer.
I use a vertical mouse no one else is capable of using and all the other mice in the house are conventional.
There was a time where I regularly made a fool of myself by having more than one mouse connected.
I’ve moved to trackballs several years ago
Have you considered that your computer may be haunted?
I kid, but one never knows. Good luck.
You know, that possibility would be a lot more entertaining than whatever the real issue might be.
we had the same problem and changing the trackpad solved the issue. Try disabling the trackpad and using an external to see if it is the source of the problem
Under the other OS both work fine. And it would be highly disapointing, as the bloody machine is near new.
Is there a touchscreen on the laptop by any chance?
No, thankfully.
Similar. And had trackpad replaced. It helped but I think it might be coming back.
