Mouse cursor duplicated in dual screen setup

[Maarten Bezemer]

I have attached a external monitor to my laptop. When I my the mouse from the primary display (my laptop screen) to the secondary display (external monitor), the mouse cursor image gets duplicated. On the primary screen it freezes its last location (so moving the mouse more quickly, makes sure that the mouse image is clearly visible) and on the secondary screen it keeps on performing as it should. When I move the mouse back to the primary screen, the duplicated mouse image disappears and everything works like normal again. When the duplication is 'active' the frozen mouse, still changes it's image (pointing finger, 'text thingy', resizing arrows, etc.) when my mouse on the secondary screen is hovering over elements that makes the image change. Since Ubuntu 12.10 I use the xserver-xorg-video-radeon package, as fglrx does not support my ATI video card (HD 3650) anymore. So I do not know whether the problem is also existing pre-12.10. This is not reproducible in the live environment of 13.10 and 14.04, but is in the installed ones.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: xserver-xorg-video-ati (not installed)
    -> xserver-xorg-video-radeon (1:6.99.99~git20120913.8637f772-0ubuntu1)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Oct 26 12:46:13 2012
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-10-19 (6 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.1)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-ati
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
---
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.2
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-11-20 (44 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Release amd64 (20131016.1)
MarkForUpload: True
Package: xorg 1:7.7+1ubuntu6
PackageArchitecture: amd64
Tags: saucy
Uname: Linux 3.12.4-031204-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sinan Alyuruk (sinan-alyuruk)]

I have the same problem in AMD 7500 HD and the radeon driver. (fglrx never worked for me no luck)

Ubuntu 12:10
xserver-xorg-video-radeon
1:6.99.99~git20120913.863 amd64

I had also tried changing the desktop wm from gnome(unity) to xfce4 problem persists as well

[Thomas Schüßler (vindolin)]

Same problem here.

Ubuntu 12:10
Integrated Intel HD4000 (stock drivers)

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

It looks like it is not a ati problem, so I changed the package to xorg

[Thomas Schüßler (vindolin)]

The problem went away (together with sluggish window movement) after installing a fresh 12.10 ubuntu.
Before that, I've upgraded from 12.04

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

Do you have any other packages (that you know of) installed or not installed compared to your previous installation which might have been related to the problem?

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Maarten Bezemer, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xorg <replace-with-bug-number>

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

apport information

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

apport information

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

I still have the problem using Kubuntu 13.10, nothing really changed compared to previous versions/reports.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Maarten Bezemer, thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, 13.10 is not the development release. Could you please provide the information that was requested in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1071722/comments/8 ?

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

I tried both 14.04 and 13.10 live USBs. I cannot reproduce the problem on either one.
On the other hand, my current installation (as well as previous ones) does have the problem.

So I guess it is due the configuration of my user account? Or something I installed? (and had installed in previous installations as well)
Any ideas which configuration file(s) I can remove to see whether the problem vanishes?

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Maarten Bezemer, thank you for performing the requested test. One may verify if this i a configuration issue by testing the live environment of your install via http://releases.ubuntu.com/ . Could you please do this, and comment to the results?

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

I used already the Kubuntu 13.10 and Kubuntu 14.04 live environments in the test of my previous commit...

I just create a new user account to see whether the issue is (user) configuration dependent. But this new user account has the same problem. So I guess it does not have anything to do with the (user) configuration..?

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Maarten Bezemer, thank you for performing the requested test. Just to clarify, it would appear contradictory information has been provided:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1071722/comments/11
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1071722/comments/13

So, would you be saying this is not reproducible in the live environment of 13.10 and 14.04, and reproducible in their respective installed environments? Could you please clarify?

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

Comment #11 is about my current installation comment #13 is about the live environments (booted from USB):

In summary:
I could *not* reproduce it in the live environments of Kubuntu 13.10 and 14.04.
But I 'suffer' from this problem on my currently installed machine (Kubuntu 13.10). It does not matter whether I use my regular user account or a newly created one.

I guess, the difference between my current installation and the live environments are installed packages and system configurations (e.g. in /etc).

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Maarten Bezemer, thank you for providing that clarification. Did this problem not occur with radeon in a release prior to Quantal, or with fglrx-* in a release prior to Quantal?

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

I do not know... I have this problem as long as I can remember. At a certain point I got fed up with it and filed the report.
Unfortunately I do not have any Quantal installations available. But II *suspect* it was already there in Quantal, whether I already had it when I used fglrx-* or not I dare not to say...

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Maarten Bezemer, thank you for the requested information. As the apport-collect did not provide the expected debugging information, would you please ensure xdiagnose is installed, and if so re-run the apport-collect in Trusty, ensuring you click Yes to the window noting:
"Your display manager log files may help developers diagnose the bug, but may contain sensitive information such as your hostname. Do you want to include these logs in your bug report?"

or this will virtually eliminate the potential for this being addressed.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Maarten Bezemer (veger)]

I tried to install Trusty to see if I could reproduce the issue and then send the collected data.
But I could not due to the installer crashing (bug #1267629), so I'll have to come back to this later when the installation problems are solved.

[Cd-MaN (panther79)]

I seem to have the same problem. I have a HP EliteBook 840 G1 with two external dell monitors (one horizontal and one vertical - rotated counter clockwise - although I don't think that has anything to do with it since I tried to set them all horizontal and the coursors were still doubled).

The "main" cursor is correctly aligned and the "shadow" cursor is the arrow one rotated 90deg counter clockwise. The shadow cursor dissapears once the monitor are disconnected (they are connected through a docking station - the landscape one using VGA and the vertical one using HDMI). Also, the shadow cursor doesn't show on the middle (vertical, connected through HDMI) monitor.

Ubuntu: 14.10 (utopic) installed 2 days ago with all updates installed :-)

[Cd-MaN (panther79)]

PS. I tried to run apport-collect, but it said "You are not a reporter of this bug" :-(

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Maarten Bezemer, does http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ allow you to run the apport-collect?

[huzbum (nhusby)]

I am having the same problem described by Cd-MaN on Ubuntu 14.10. I have three monitors connected to hdmi, vga, and dvi. The center monitor is oriented vertically (rotated 90 degrees).

Occasionally, on the two side monitors (which are conventionally oriented) the mouse pointer will be duplicated and rotated 90 degrees. Moving the mouse into the center (vertical) montor, the pointer goes back to normal, moving it back to the side monitors reproduces the additional rotated pointer.

I can usually make this go away by opening a terminal, putting my mouse cursor in the terminal window, and typing exit.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

huzbum, it would help immensely if you filed a new report via a terminal:
ubuntu-bug xorg

Please ensure you have xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information.

Also, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xorg (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad (joe-mailinator)]

I hope this doesn't necro this thread. But I can add some information around this bug, and possible fixes for those plagued by it.

I had this problem, and it developed after accidentally deleting my home directory, and rebuilding it piecemeal from an old backup (so it may be configuration related), and after trying to install ATI proprietary drivers through kubuntu's driver manager.

The specific conditions where the mouse cursor would show up on the primary monitor was: when I moved the mouse to the secondary monitor, the cursor would show up at the same horizontal position that the crossover happened once the mouse cursor changed icons (vertical position was dependant on the speed the mouse was moving when it changed screens). The ghost cursor would then stay on the primary screen and would mimic the mouse icon, until the mouse was moved back to primary.

My fix seemed to be to remove proprietary drivers and reinstall open source drivers. I also needed to force install a dependency for the open source drivers.

sudo apt-get remove fglrx*

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati
sudo apt-get install xorg-video-abi-15
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati

Hope this helps anyone looking for answers.