nautilus no longer accept left mouse clicks

[Ken Pratt]

Binary package hint: nautilus

I was using NetBeans to edit a file and NetBeans got into a mode where the mouse was "stuck in select drag" mode. That is, with no mouse buttons pressed, the greyed select region followed my mouse as if I had started a select mouse gesture. ESC did not free it. Once this happened, I could not interact with anything on the desktop or anything else at all that required a left click. It was if the left click button ceased to work.

I suspect Nautilus (as it is managing the root window) missed an event that would free the select gesture leaving the cursor in constant drag mode. I had to CTRL-ALT-F1 to get to a console and reboot the computer. I could not log out.

ALT-TAB still worked. And applications that have keyboard shortcuts still worked.

Even if the fault lies with Java or NetBeans, the nautilus should recover from this situation using some means.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: nautilus 1:2.30.0-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
CheckboxSubmission: 48d893255053224631a12a7b4064254b
CheckboxSystem: d00f84de8a555815fa1c4660280da308
Date: Thu Apr 29 19:33:16 2010
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100406.1)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, it's not likely a nautilus issue, rather a weird one time issue for one user, letting it open there in case somebody wants to pick it up but it should probably be turned out to a question or something since it's not likely it will be worked

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

reassigning to netbeans since that's it that got the cursor stucked

[Ken Pratt (kenpratt)]

Specifically, this happens when you drag a Nautilus desktop icon quickly. Start the drag prior to the icon becoming selected.

To reproduce: In a quick, continuous, motion, move the mouse cursor to a desktop folder, left click and drag. Sometimes, the folder does not move. When this happens, the mouse is left in the drag state and you can not click on anything nor alt-tab through windows. Only killing Nautilus will free your mouse.

[Andy de Torres (detorres)]

I am seeing the original reported issue several times a day, and I just got it while trying to create a launchpad account in Chrome. I seemed to be getting the problem a lot when NetBeans' auto-completion would pop up. I think the problem might have been when it popped up under the pointer. I've turned it off and am having fewer problems (still at least three so far today). Also trying to keep the pointer in a different part of the screen to minimize the chances. But this wasn't the case just now in Chrome. Not sure what happened there.

Anyway, same thing. Moving the mouse extends the selection. Keyboard (including alt-tab) and right mouse button work fine. Have to reboot to get rid of the problem.

I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, GNOME, NetBeans 6.9.1.
Java: 1.6.0_24; Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 19.1-b02
System: Linux version 2.6.32-30-generic running on amd64; UTF-8; en_US (nb)

Thanks.

[Andy de Torres (detorres)]

It just happened again, and this time I was doing an Alt-Enter auto-import hints thing in the editor. I noticed my pointer was in the editor but NOT in either of the pop-ups that came up, so disregard that idea. This reminds me, though, that I have seen this problem happen with the mouse in the editor pane and in the Projects pane. Wherever the mouse is, that is where the selection seems to be anchored (selecting source in the editor or selecting files/folders in the Projects pane).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Rayne (simon-cisco)]

It happened to me while clicking the NTFS drives which automounts them in 12.04. It's happened a few times, i think always performing the same action. You can click many times and it selects the file or ignores you almost at random. Any text within nautilus is selected with the mouse automatically, you can click or not or press keys and it all stays the same it selects the text (like the text in the about window) and randomly selects files or not with the mouse. Restarting fixes the problem, and it doesn't carry over to other programs. The mouse continues to select, deselect and generally function normally in firefox, thunderbird, and everything else i've tried.