GTK3 applications grab mouse input when the menu bar or the resize-grip are clicked

[Rodrigo Exterckötter Tjäder]

GTK apps grab mouse input when you click the resize-grip or menubar in tiling window managers.
The menubar bug only manifests with gnome-settings-daemon running.

I have tested it on dwm, awesome, i3, openbox, gnome classic and gnome shell, and the bug manifested in all three tiling window managers.

This bug is very annoying, as the only way to get mouse input back is to close the offending application.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Jason Hobbs (jason-hobbs)]

I've had exactly the same problem and figured out how to reproduce it.

1) Open gnome-terminal
2) Hold shift (either left or right) and left click on the menubar
3) Mouse clicks and movement are now ignored by all apps

I've got it to go away too - but I'm not sure how I did that yet.

This is a big bummer for me as I end up having to kill several tabs with of terminals a few times a day.

[Rodrigo Exterckötter Tjäder (rodrigo-tjader)]

I can reproduce it as said in comment #3. I also noticed that it only happens if I have gnome-settings-daemon running, and it can be triggered from other gnome apps, like gnome-calculator and gnome-character-map, by shift-clicking in the menu bar as well.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could be the same issue than bug #868400?

[Rodrigo Exterckötter Tjäder (rodrigo-tjader)]

After some testing, I think it's related to some interaction between gnome-settings-daemon and tiling window managers. I can trigger the bug in awesome, dwm and scrotwm but not in Unity, GNOME and Openbox.

I don't think it's the same problem as bug #868400, their problem is specific to the synaptics device, as someone mentioned that the touchpad stopped working but the pointer nub in the keyboard kept working.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

it seems likely to be an indicator-appmenu issue rather than a g-s-d one

[Jason Hobbs (jason-hobbs)]

I'm running xmonad, which fits with the issue being specific to tiling window managers.

[Jason Hobbs (jason-hobbs)]

RE: #8 - I uninstalled the indicator-appmenu package and the same behavior persists. Why do you think it's likely to be an indicator-appmenu issue?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

dunno, it seemed like you called "bar" the exported menu bar in unity but the description could just be confusing, why do you think it's a gnome-settings-daemon issue?

[Rodrigo Exterckötter Tjäder (rodrigo-tjader)]

Sebastien, we think it's a gnome-settings-daemon issue because it only happens if gnome-settings-daemon is running.

I don't have the exported bar from Unity, and Jason likely does not have as well, as he uses xmonad. The bug happens when shift-clicking in the menu bar inside the application's window. Also, as I said in comment #7, the bug doesn't happen in Unity.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

does it happen in g-s-d if you disable the "disable while typing" option? does it happen if you run syndaemon manually without gsd?

[Rodrigo Exterckötter Tjäder (rodrigo-tjader)]

As I said earlier, I don't have a touchpad, so I don't have the "disable while type" option, neither do I have syndaemon running.

But, when I went to gnome-control-center to check if I even had the "disable while type" option available I noticed that clicking on the bar at the top (the one with the search input box) makes gnome-control-center grab the mouse input as well.

[Jason Hobbs (jason-hobbs)]

I don't have the exported bar from Unity either (not even really sure what it is since i've avoided Unity so far), and I'm not running a tablet. I can confirm that killing gnome-settings-daemon after my session starts makes this issue go away. I'm not really sure what I lose by killing gnome-session-daemon.

[Jason Hobbs (jason-hobbs)]

oops, "by killing gnome-settings-daemon".

[Jason Hobbs (jason-hobbs)]

For anyone else having this problem, I've eliminated the day-to-day hassle by using sakura for my term app instead of gnome-terminal. It's very similar in interface and doesn't trigger this bug.

[Rodrigo Exterckötter Tjäder (rodrigo-tjader)]

I have done some more investigation on this and found the following bug report: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=650943

Clicking in the resize box triggers the mouse grab even when not running gnome-settings-daemon. I have also tested with non-GNOME gtk2 and gtk3 apps, and it happens only in the gtk3 ones, so I'm reassigning this to libgtk-3-0.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gtk+3.0 - 3.3.6-0ubuntu1

---------------
gtk+3.0 (3.3.6-0ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

  * New upstream version, dropped the patches backported from git:
    - trap XIQueryDevice errors to avoid sessions errors issues after suspend
      (lp: #882956)
    - don't grab mouse input when the menu bar or the resize-grip are clicked
      (lp: #878859)
  * debian/control.in:
    - updated glib requirement
  * debian/libgtk-3-0.postinst.in, debian/rules:
    - don't list the old non-multi-arch ims directory, everything using gtk3
      should be updated and it breaks the update when the directory is empty
      (lp: #908801)
  * debian/libgtk-3-0.symbols:
    - new version update
  * debian/patches/003_gdk.pc_privates.patch:
    - dropped, upstream did similar changes in the new version
  * debian/patches/042_treeview_single-focus.patch:
    - comment that debian change, it has no comment explaining what it's
      supposed to do and needs to be updating if still needed.
  * debian/rules:
    - updated shlibs version
 -- Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:35:24 +0100

[Kyle Anderson (kyle-richard-anderson)]

I have been able to duplicate this bug on Ubuntu 14.04 gnome fresh install fully updated. Only fix is to log out of current user and log back in. Upon which the bug is no longer present... so far. Grabbing the menu area or text allows you to re-click menu items. Upon reboot bug appears again. As this is my first time posting and I have limited linux knowledge I am happy to give any information... I just ask you to be patient with me :).

[Beat (cc-h)]

I'm running Debian 3.2.81-1.
Apparently, the bug has been back-ported some months ago, but not the fix.
It seems WM independent (switched to xfce4 for trying).
Offending application is evolution.