Mouse settings ignored when plugging in a new mouse

[Ben James]

I'm running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on a Dell XPS 13 laptop with an external mouse and keyboard connected via a USB switch.*

I've set the mouse to left-handed operation (i.e. primary mouse button = right) using gnome-control-center; this works fine for a while and shows the expected setting on the command line:

> gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.mouse left-handed
true

...however if I leave the laptop for a while and come back to it, the mouse has reverted back to right-handed operation. The really curious thing is that gnome-control-center still shows the expected setting (primary mouse button = right).

To set the mouse as desired, I have to change the primary mouse button to left and then back to right in gnome-control-center.

It's almost as if gsettings is reverting the mouse configuration and becoming out of sync with gnome-control-center.

*The laptop is connected to a monitor using a single USB-C cable; the monitor acts as a USB hub and is connected to a USB switch such that I can use a single keyboard and mouse with two machines.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.36.4-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-52.57-generic 5.4.65
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-52-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.11
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Nov 11 19:51:39 2020
DistributionChannelDescriptor:
 # This is the distribution channel descriptor for the OEM CDs
 # For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor
 canonical-oem-somerville-bionic-amd64-20190418-59+beaver-osp1+X00
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-control-center
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-08-04 (99 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 "Bionic" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20190418-12:10
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-09-22 (50 days ago)

[Ben James (ben-c-james)]

After a bit more debug, it appears the problem occurs when any external mouse is disconnected and reconnected (ruling out the USB hub and switch as a factor).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for the bug report, it's already known as bug #1899509

[Ben James (ben-c-james)]

I can also confirm that gsettings shows the correct value when disconnecting the mouse, but when the mouse is reconnected, the setting is reverted silently (gsettings and gnome-control-center show the wrong value).

gsettings and gnome-control-center are in sync, but both wrong.

Steps to reproduce:

1) Plug in two USB mice.
2) Set Primary Button: Right.
3) Confirm - both buttons work as expected on both mice, gsettings shows "left-handed true"
4) Unplug one mouse.
5) The remaining mouse works fine, gsettings and gnome-control-center both show the right setting.
6) Plug the second mouse in again.
7) gsettings and gnome-control-center still show the same setting, however the two mice have different behaviour.

Summary: Mouse settings are not applied to a new mouse.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Possibly related to bug #1899206.

@Ben: Can you please install the mutter packages from this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/ubuntu/mutter

and let us know if it makes a difference.

[Ben James (ben-c-james)]

> @Ben: Can you please install the mutter packages from this PPA

I can confirm that the suggested package works - I've tried with multiple mice and all keep adopt the expected settings when I unplug and plug them in again.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Thanks Ben, that's valuable input.