# Mouse Jerks When Moving



## DarkLord (Dec 4, 2013)

So far on my machine I seem to have gotten X working fairly well and have installed xfce, Awesome, and IceWM as my window managers. It all goes well, but then occasionally the mouse movement becomes erratic, jerky, not smooth, etc, and then after anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes later, it stops and the movement is smooth again. In my /etc/rc.conf, I do have the options

```
hald_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
```
enabled, and this behaviour seems to happen in all three of the graphical environments I listed above. I've also tested my mouse using a USB install of Porteus Linux and get the same behaviour. However, I'm not convinced it is a hardware problem, because I can't duplicate this behaviour in Windows 7 (I'm dual booting FreeBSD 9.2 + Windows 7). I'm really not sure what to do. Any suggestions? Should I post any outputs, logfiles, etc?

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but my mouse is a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500.


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## wblock@ (Dec 4, 2013)

Remove the AllowEmptyInput line from xorg.conf.  Don't change the setting, remove it completely.

Reference: AllowEmptyInput, FreeBSD, and Xorg Input


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## DarkLord (Dec 5, 2013)

I believe I actually came across that article while researching the problem, so the AllowEmptyInput option has already been completely removed from xorg.conf so I don't think this is the problem.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Dec 5, 2013)

I worked around a similar problem by switching from a touchpad to a trackball, FWIW.  It may have been/might be a cabling issue. I never fully resolved it.


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## DarkLord (Dec 5, 2013)

Yeah, I'm kind of wondering/suspecting this may be a similar situation which won't really be resolved. I'm thinking of getting another mouse just to help diagnose whether it's a software or hardware issue, I just wanted to see if anyone had any ideas before I go off spending potentially unnecessary money on a new mouse.


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## wblock@ (Dec 5, 2013)

What mouse do you have?


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## DarkLord (Dec 5, 2013)

My mouse is the Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500. It is a USB wireless mouse, not Bluetooth, and I've tried multiple batteries while still getting similar results.


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## wblock@ (Dec 5, 2013)

There have been reports of problems with wireless mice.  Some suggested that Microsoft changed the protocol on their wireless mice.  All I've ever tried were the Logitech ones, which worked fine.

Borrow a USB wired mouse and try it.


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## DarkLord (Dec 5, 2013)

I see. I didn't expect USB wireless mice would have problems I guess because I expected the USB receiver would just translate the signals into the same signals a wired mouse would give, but I'll certainly try to get another mouse to test with.


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## wblock@ (Dec 5, 2013)

It should be the same with wired or wireless, and in fact seems to be with Logitech.  Come to think of it, I've used one or two Microsoft wireless mice, too, but they were old. I might still have one on the mouse pile, I'll go look.


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## wblock@ (Dec 5, 2013)

At present, I only have a "Microsoft Optical Mouse 2.0".  It looks pretty old, has that side-to-side roller wheel that looks like knee cartilage.  It works, though.  How long does it take for the movement problems to show up?

Which brings up another point -- could your motion problems be caused by wireless interference from a cordless phone or microwave or some other RF source?


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## DarkLord (Dec 5, 2013)

It's kind of erratic as to when it happens, but generally within 5 - 15 minutes I might notice abnormal mouse movement. Today I'm not really seeing much of anything, and I've been using it for about an hour now. It's causing me to wonder if I was compiling a large port or something when noticing the jerkiness, but forgot and so thought it was actually a problem. I would assume compiling a large port could potentially cause a slowdown which would cause this sort of behaviour? I don't remember if I was compiling or not, but I've not been able to duplicate this behaviour today except for a slight cursor stickiness while navigating Thunderbird's menus (I'm not sure why this would happen though - my system is more than powerful enough to handle this activity).

I'm not aware of significant interference which might cause this, but it's a possibility I suppose. I'll definitely try to see if a wired mouse exhibits the same problems given time and come back if it does.


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