Bug#526095: xorg: KVM switch change makes mouse stop working

[David]

Package: xorg
Version: 1:7.4+1
Severity: normal

Hi there. I'm not sure if this is an xorg issue precisely, but it
seems to be the best place to post this.

I use a PS2 mouse, connected to a KVM switch (or more precisely, a USB
mouse, with a USB->PS2 adaptor, connected to a KVM switch that only
has PS2 connections).

When I switch away from X and back again, the mouse frequently becomes
completely unresponsive. If I stop and start X (/etc/init.d/dkm
restart), the mouse still doesn't work. If I try witching between
various Linux boxes on the KVM switch, the mouse still does not work.

However, as soon as I change over to a Windows XP machine (on the user
login screen), the mouse starts working (in Windows XP) in a few
seconds. Then when I switch back to KDE, the mouse has resumed
working.

Since I need to use the KVM switch fairly often, I mainly use the XP
box as a way to get my mouse working again in Linux.

What the above suggests, is that the XP login screen has some kind of
special logic which somehow resets either the KVM's PS2 internals, or
the mouse itself (I don't really understand how this is possible).

Is there something I can do with the X server to do a similar "Force
PS2 mouse reset", like Windows XP does automatically?

Thanks,

David.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.29-1-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_ZA.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_ZA.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages xorg depends on:
ii konsole [x-terminal-emulator] 4:4.2.2-1 X terminal emulator for KDE 4
ii libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl1] 7.4-2 A free implementation of the OpenG
ii libglu1-mesa 7.4-2 The OpenGL utility library (GLU)
ii x11-apps 7.3+4 X applications
ii x11-session-utils 7.3+1 X session utilities
ii x11-utils 7.4+1 X11 utilities
ii x11-xfs-utils 7.4+1 X font server utilities
ii x11-xkb-utils 7.4+2 X11 XKB utilities
ii x11-xserver-utils 7.4+2 X server utilities
ii xauth 1:1.0.3-2 X authentication utility
ii xfce4-terminal [x-terminal-em 0.2.12-1 Xfce terminal emulator
ii xfonts-100dpi 1:1.0.0-4 100 dpi fonts for X
ii xfonts-75dpi 1:1.0.0-4 75 dpi fonts for X
ii xfonts-base 1:1.0.0-6 standard fonts for X
ii xfonts-scalable 1:1.0.0-6 scalable fonts for X
ii xfonts-utils 1:7.4+1 X Window System font utility progr
ii xinit 1.1.1-1 X server initialisation tool
ii xkb-data 1.5-2 X Keyboard Extension (XKB) configu
ii xserver-xorg 1:7.4+1 the X.Org X server
ii xterm [x-terminal-emulator] 242-1 X terminal emulator

Versions of packages xorg recommends:
ii xorg-docs 1:1.4-4 Miscellaneous documentation for th

xorg suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

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[Julien Cristau]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 10:07:06 +0200, David wrote:

> Hi there. I'm not sure if this is an xorg issue precisely, but it
> seems to be the best place to post this.
>
> I use a PS2 mouse, connected to a KVM switch (or more precisely, a USB
> mouse, with a USB->PS2 adaptor, connected to a KVM switch that only
> has PS2 connections).
>
> When I switch away from X and back again, the mouse frequently becomes
> completely unresponsive. If I stop and start X (/etc/init.d/dkm
> restart), the mouse still doesn't work. If I try witching between
> various Linux boxes on the KVM switch, the mouse still does not work.
>

Hi David,

We need your X and kernel logs.

Cheers,
Julien

[David]

Also forwarding to the Debian bug tracker. I forgot to CC it in my last mail.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David <wizz...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: Bug#526095: xorg: KVM switch change makes mouse stop working
To: Julien Cristau <jcri...@debian.org>

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Julien Cristau <jcri...@debian.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 10:07:06 +0200, David wrote:
>
>> Hi there.  I'm not sure if this is an xorg issue precisely, but it
>> seems to be the best place to post this.
>>
>> I use a PS2 mouse, connected to a KVM switch (or more precisely, a USB
>> mouse, with a USB->PS2 adaptor, connected to a KVM switch that only
>> has PS2 connections).
>>
>> When I switch away from X and back again, the mouse frequently becomes
>> completely unresponsive. If I stop and start X (/etc/init.d/dkm
>> restart), the mouse still doesn't work. If I try witching between
>> various Linux boxes on the KVM switch, the mouse still does not work.
>>
> Hi David,
>
> We need your X and kernel logs.
>
> Cheers,
> Julien
>

Thanks for your quick reply.

I don't seem to be able to reproduce the problem right now, but I've
attached my logs from earlier today, when I had the problem (around
8:30-8:40 AM).

Also, since then I did try to reproduce the problem a few times (by
kvm switch changes) at around 11 AM, but the mouse was restarted
correctly each time. But that might show up in the logs too. There's
also a few unrelated crontab entries in the syslog.

Regards,

David.