Mouse failure - can't click on anything

hucker

New Member
Messages
10
This happens about once every 2 or 3 weeks.

Suddenly (in this case I alt-tabbed from a game (Civ 5) to a web browser (Opera)), and found nothing I clicked would do anything. Except the desktop, that worked. It was as though there was a pane of glass between the cursor and all the programs. I couldn't switch to a program by clicking on it, I couldn't click anything within any program, but the keyboard remained functional.

This meant I couldn't save the game I was playing, and had to use all sorts of convoluted shortcut keys to close everything down and restart windows.

I tried unplugging the mouse and plugging it back in, but that had no effect.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
go to device manager and uninstall the mouse drivers, then reboot
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 & Windows 7 Dual Boot
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP G60
    CPU
    AMD Turion RM-70 Dual Core 2.0 GHZ
    Memory
    3 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce 8200M G
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Mouse
    MS Intellipoint 5 button (love it!)
    Browser
    Chrome and Chromium
    Antivirus
    Avast Free & Malwarebytes
Not sure how the mouse driver could help as I could click the desktop just fine, but I'll try if it happens again. It seems to have fixed itself.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
What is the make and model of your mouse? Do you have the latest driver/firmware for it? Have any of the mouse settings been changed, whether intentional or unintentional?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom build
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X 4 965 BE
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4
    Memory
    G-Skill 8 GB PC 8500
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD XFX HD Radeon 6790D
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2l Samsung SyncMaster S20B300
    Screen Resolution
    1600 X 900
    Hard Drives
    Seagate Barracuda 320 GB w/OS
    Seagate Barracuda 1 TB data storage
    PSU
    Ultra X4 750 watt fully modular
    Case
    Thermaltake OverSeer RX 1 fulltower
    Cooling
    Cooler Master Hyper212 120mm
    Keyboard
    Logitech G510
    Mouse
    Razor DeathAdder 3.5
Could be a bit messy. It's a Dell standard optical mouse, which is manufactured by Logitech. So I installed Logitech drivers so I could reprogram the middle button. I've also got a utility installed so using the wheel correctly scrolls what's under the cursor, instead of the application in focus which is a crazy idea.

The thing is though it works perfectly 99% of the time!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
It just did it again, and it's not restricted to the mouse. I cannot use the windows key on the keyboard (I can if I kill explorer.exe and start explorer.exe again in the task manager), or get to the active corners, making it impossible to shut down the machine properly. Does anybody know a way to shut down the machine without holding the power switch for 4 seconds? I've currently got my power switch set to sleep the computer (which only works once between each shutdown for some reason), so I'll reprogram that to shut down and see if that works next time.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
Windows key + C should get u to the charms bar, then arrow keys should let you shut down the machine... :geek: but, if you are having problems with the Windows key, you might try running the sfc /scannow command from an administrative cmd prompt.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    17074 Pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP dv7 3173nr
    CPU
    M520
    Memory
    5GB
    Screen Resolution
    1600x900
    Internet Speed
    120Mb/s
  • PC2
    HP A12 R7 17074
Ah thanks, I'll try WIN-C next time, I forgot what the bar was called - "charms" is not very intuitive.

Running sfc /scannow......
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
(alt) F4 is the ancient way, it will keep closing current open windows until it gets to the shutdown screen then hit (enter)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 & Windows 7 Dual Boot
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP G60
    CPU
    AMD Turion RM-70 Dual Core 2.0 GHZ
    Memory
    3 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce 8200M G
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Mouse
    MS Intellipoint 5 button (love it!)
    Browser
    Chrome and Chromium
    Antivirus
    Avast Free & Malwarebytes
Didn't think of ALT-F4, does that still work in Windows 8?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
Scan complete: "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
Yes.. its the old failsafe!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 & Windows 7 Dual Boot
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP G60
    CPU
    AMD Turion RM-70 Dual Core 2.0 GHZ
    Memory
    3 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Nvidia GeForce 8200M G
    Screen Resolution
    1366 x 768
    Mouse
    MS Intellipoint 5 button (love it!)
    Browser
    Chrome and Chromium
    Antivirus
    Avast Free & Malwarebytes
Also try alt,ctrl,del and click tab and hit enter the select shutdown.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    pro Windows 8 64-bit
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Inspiron 15R
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    AVG
Thanks, I'll try these next time.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
Your welcome. If you have this again try refreshing windows. Basically search refreshing windows 8
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    pro Windows 8 64-bit
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Inspiron 15R
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    AVG
Ok. Although I've only installed windows a month or two ago.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
Since I found this with Google and I have a very similar problem, here is what I've found out: In my case the programme SynTPEnh.exe from the touchpad driver caused it. Sometimes, after minimizing a fullscreen window, this programme puts an invisible window in front of everything. Only ALT+TAB+MouseClick seems to work. Simple quick-fix: Kill the process and restart it (not a real fix but much of a relief for me). A simple batch file + Launchy makes this quite bearable.

Code:
taskkill /f /IM SynTPEnh.exe
start "" "C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe"
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win X
Windows 10 fixes the problem.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built
    CPU
    i5 3570K
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte Z77-DS3H
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon HD 6850
    Browser
    Opera 12
    Antivirus
    AVG 2013
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