Cursor jumps to left/right side of screen when moving from one monitor to another

[Paul Tansom]

When running a dual screen setup with the launcher set to autohide the cursor jumps across to the left side of the screen as soon as the mouse moves it from the right monitor to the left one. If you move slowly it will sometimes stay in place, and if you disable the autohide it works properly. I've no idea about Unity 3d as there appears to be no way to enable it for dual screens yet.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: unity-2d-launcher 5.10.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-23.36-generic-pae 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-23-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Apr 22 13:09:25 2012
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: unity-2d
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-03-19 (33 days ago)

[Albert Astals Cid (aacid)]

Hi Paul, can't reproduce the problem here, could you please record a video of your desktop (google for it if you don't know how to do it, there are a lots of howtos floating in the net) and attach it here so we can see what you are getting?

[Gerry Boland (gerboland)]

Hey Paul,
I can maybe clarify something. Are you noticing when moving the mouse from the right to the left monitor, that the mouse does not move smoothly? As you say, if you push it gently, it gets 'stuck'?

This is probably intended behaviour. Check that you have this setup:
1. In System Settings, Monitor tab, have a launcher placed on every screen
2. In same dialog, have monitor sticky edges disabled
3. Launcher is in autohide mode.

In this case, in order to reveal the launcher on the right monitor, there is a "mouse barrier" which if you push against it with a certain pressure will cause the launcher on the right monitor to appear. You can play with this pressure in the System Settings->Appearance->Behaviour tab, by moving the "Reveal Sensitivity" slider.

Note that moving the mouse from the left monitor to the right will experience no barrier - i.e. it will smoothly move.
Maybe this helps clarify the behaviour?
-G

[Stephen Birch (sgbirch)]

I don't know if this is the same problem but on my three screen setup (NVidia and xinerama), moving the cursor from left to right over the launcher causes the mouse to suddenly hop to the right screen.

The same thing happens when dragging from left to right over the launcher.

Video attached.

[Paul Tansom (aptanet)]

Stephen Birch: Yes that is the same problem, I have just uploaded my screencast to Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8TsiS88YDc - my screens are set the opposite way to yours (i.e. not default I had to swap them in the xorg.conf file)

Gerry Boland: I can't see it being intended behaviour, it only happens in one direction. As for the 'Monitor' tab, I don't have one. I have Apperance where I can change the autohide setting, and Displays which complains that the XRandR extension is not present. This could be because I get forced into Unity 2D mode though.

[Dan Emmons-Norkum (danman-1999)]

Having the same problem, except my screens are flipped around so the problem happens on the transition from left to right.

Running two identical monitors on the same Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT

[Jason Smestad (endoalir)]

This happens to me too. I have 2 screens, and if I move my cursor from the left screen to the right, the cursor jumps all the way to the very right edge of the right screen. Also if I set the launcher to auto-hide, I will not be able to reveal the launcher again. If I use twinview it works fine, this only happens when it is configured to use separate X screens, after enabling "Xinerama" in the nvidia-settings panel. Also to note, on mine I get this message when I open nvidia-settings or if I choose "Displays..." from the utility menu in the top right of the menu bar:
Xlib: extension "RANDR" missing on display ":0.0".

[jonim8or (ongewenstepostberichten)]

I have probably the same problem, but in a different direction. I have a quad screen setup, where my bottom-left screen is monitor0 and has the unity dock.
If I move my cursor from my top-left screen to my bottom-left screen, it jumps to the bottom of the bottom-left screen. All other movements are done ok. (top-left to top-right, top-right to bottom-right , bottom-left to top-left, bottom-left to bottom-right, and bottom-right to bottom-left)

[jonim8or (ongewenstepostberichten)]

Here's a youtube vid of my problem
http://youtu.be/OcmQpKj4Rng

[Rodney Beede (business2008+launchpad)]

I have this problem whether auto-hide is on or off.

[Doomedelite (doomedelite)]

I also have the same issue, with any Window Manager (Tested with Unity, Unity-2d, and Awesome).

Auto-hide doesn't change this issue for me either, happens while it's both off and on.

It's terribly annoying =/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Doomedelite (doomedelite)]

Disregard what I said about it happening in Awesome, I must have been dreaming ^^ Working just dandy.

[Alvaro Paredes (alvaroparedesl)]

I got the exactly the same problem as Stephen Birch, with dual Ndvidia cards (three monitors and xinerama)

I hope this could be fixed soon...

[tylerthemiler (tylercloke)]

Same problem, auto-hide doesn't fix it. Nvidia graphics card. Total breaks my user experience, switching back to windows until fixed >,<

[George MacButts (picnicbasket)]

I'm getting this issue as well. Tested on a clean install with nothing but NVIDIA drivers loaded. Bug happens in TwinView or Xinerama. If the launch bar is on the border between both monitors, the cursor will jump to the far edge of the screen when moving from the window without the launch bar to the window with the launch bar. Happens with and without the launch bar hidden.

Does not happen in dual screen without nvidia drivers.

Running 12.04 64-bit (also tested/confirmed on 32-bit), NVIDIA 9600GT

[George MacButts (picnicbasket)]

Further testing, it does NOT occur in TwinView. There is a related issue for TwinView, however.

Occurs in Xinerama only. Does not occur on the login screen. Seems to be something with how Xinerama interacts with the launch bar.

[Travis (trav-emme)]

I have a triple monitor setup with 2 graphics cards. This bug used to NOT affect me when I was running 2 monitors off 1 card A (hdmi and dvi) and 1 monitor off card B(dvi)

I've since purchased different monitors and have to run them all on dvi.
So the setup is: card A(dvi) card B(dvi, dvi)
And now this bug is hit for me as well. This is a big show stopper.

So far I've tried to re-arrange cables and the related xorg.conf entries. No matter what the configuration when the cursor goes from card A to card B it jumps to the wrong edge.
Using absolute or relative in xorg.conf doesnt matter either.

As others found, the login screen is not affected.

[Jason Smestad (endoalir)]

I struggled with this for some time. With xinerama, I experienced this cursor wierdness, and other symptoms too. Xrandr was failing, and due to this, my power indicator also went missing, and I couldn't use Unity 3d - it was reverting me to Unity 2d. I tried twinview and also xinerama, and I wasn't happy with either of those options. In the end, what I ended up doing was purging all things nvidia* from my system, deleted the xorg.conf file completely, and then I installed the nvidia-current package. After that, everything works beautifuly. Unity 3d is back, xrandr functions correctly, my power indicator is there, and I can use both my monitors. I've had it fixed for a while and I'm happy now.

So I'll leave this here, for anyone that's looking for an answer, the steps that fixed it for me. Do this at your own risk, and make backups first, but my fix went like this:

* Ctrl-Alt F1 to switch to console, and login there
* sudo service lightdm stop
* sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
* sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
* sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
* sudo shutdown -r now

[Paul Tansom (aptanet)]

This problem has just got worse for me. There was a brief period where the dual screen setup was completely broken (i.e. I only got a single screen with the same setup), but before I got the chance to investigate an update fixed things (sorry!). I now have better control of the screens in the AMD Catalyst control panel (as in moving screens, etc. which I had to do manually in xorg.conf before), but the mouse bug is now always there, whether or not I autohide the Dash. Unfortunately the above nVidia fix isn't going to help me!

[Christoph Vollmer (christoph-vollmer-85)]

Hi,

i've got the same problem running my 3 Screen Setup.
I've got 2 AMD Cards installed so this problem isn't a nvidia only problem. (I think no AMD user reported this before).

Is there any workaround yet?
I'm just asking because this problem is marked as confirmed since ~half a year.
If you need some logs or configs i can provide them.

Cheers
 Chris

[Kelly Ellis (kellyellis)]

I too am desperate for a workaround. I've fiddled with just about every launcher setting to no avail...