Use of the middle mouse button in Konqueror, whether to open a link in a new tab or simply to paste text, causes the browser to become unresponsive. Worse, even if all Konqueror processes are killed, after that very little or nothing can be done with any mouse clicks on the KDE desktop or in any other applications. Full functionality can only be restored if the user logs out first. This may be a general KDE bug, except that it is only triggered by the use of the middle mouse button in Konqueror. After that, use of the mouse is severely limited at least. Keyboard control, however, is still possible. Otherwise, actions with the middle mouse button in all other applications do not cause the problem. This is a problem that is difficult to reproduce. For this report I tried to force it to occur not long after starting a desktop session, but without any luck. I've learned to avoid using the middle mouse button in Konqueror, which allows me to continue work indefinitely. However, at such times, a single middle mouse click in Konqueror can bring the session to an end. The desktop machine on which this occurs was installed only six weeks ago. The problem has been occurring for about the last three weeks.
I can confirm what Jaap said earlier and get the exact same result here. When clicking on links using the middle button, the icon appears dragged then mouse clicks are completely ignored in KDE. Killing kwin and starting it again does not solve the problem and you have to logout. It seems Plasma has been put to death somehow because icon highlighting does not work anymore in the main panel. At first, I though I had a problem with my mouse button being stuck or something but this is something I get at work using the exact same software version. The bug seems to be recent because I first triggered it around a month ago (cannot remember when exactly). No problem before that. Thank you. Jerome
I'm so glad to find this bug, I thought I was the only person on the Internet having this problem. Are the original posters still experiencing it with KDE 4.4 or 4.6, whichever you're on now ? This symptom, of middle-click in Konqueror putting the mouse into an irrecoverable state, has been an intermittent problem for me since KDE3.5 days. I recently upgraded to Squeeze, although still running 3.5 (Trinity KDE 3.5.12), and now it's almost guaranteed to occur. I will try to replicate it on KDE4.4 as well, but I need the machine at the moment so can't really spare much time to experiment (hence why running Trinity until I can develop a new way of working for KDE4, my existing workflow habits depend on KDE3.5 so much). What I can say is: * using the 3.5 keyboard-status-applet, it seems that X becomes convinced that the middle button is stuck down, and nothing will make it release it. I don't know how to get this information out of KDE4 though. * it doesn't seem to depend on mouse driver, as I've forced X to use the old mouse_drv on /dev/input/mice, rather than auto-discovering via evdev, and I still have the problem. * it only seems to be Konqueror. Middle-click on maximise button or on a link or in the location bar will cause it, not always but often. * I've set EmulateWheel, EmulateWheelButton and Emulate3Buttons to "0", to avoid possible effects from extra button presses simulating middle-clicks or middle-drags. I have a dump of the stream from /dev/input/mice taken when the problem occurred, if that is of use. Not looked at how to interpret it yet but I can upload if it's wanted. Maybe the problem on KDE4 is different from that on KDE3, but my hunch at present is that they may be related. If you guys are still experiencing it, it's probably worth our while taking this bug upstream. Nick
It seems that this is due to mouse gestures being enabled. I discovered that Konqueror gestures had been turned on by some update or other. By turning off mouse gestures, the problem goes away. It does still happen with KDE 4.4 in Squeeze. Not had a chance to try 4.6 in Testing yet. Nick