Left-hand mouse click sometimes not recognized

[Paul Smith]

Dear All,

From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand
mouse click recognized. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Paul

[Paul Smith]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 8:38 PM Paul Smith <phhs80(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand
>  mouse click recognized. Any ideas? 
Let me add that my mouse is a wired USB one.

Paul

[Tom Horsley]

On Tue, 27 Jul 2021 20:38:04 +0100
Paul Smith wrote:

>  From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand
>  mouse click recognized. Any ideas? 
Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely.

[stan]

On Tue, 27 Jul 2021 16:02:21 -0400
Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Tue, 27 Jul 2021 20:38:04 +0100
>  Paul Smith wrote:
>  
>  > From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand
>  > mouse click recognized. Any ideas?  
>  
>  Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely. 
To add to what Tom said, the switch that sends the signal often wears
to the point that pressing the mouse button barely trips the switch.
If you are handy, and already have some epoxy, you can take the mouse
apart and apply some epoxy to bring it back to new level, let it set,
put the mouse together again, and it will probably work for a few more
years. If you don't already have epoxy, it is probably cheaper to just
buy a new mouse.

[Tim]

Paul Smith,
> > From time to time, I have to click several times to get a
> left-hand
> > mouse click recognized. Any ideas? 
Tom Horsley:
>  Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely.
I've come across many a mouse where the soldering of the switch to the
printed circuit board has mechanically failed, either through just the
normal use of the mouse, or when mice get dropped and land on a button.

That's easily fixed by resoldering it.  But if you don't have the
tools, and the particular mouse isn't worth the effort of trying to fix
it, it's usually far easier just to get a new one.

-- 
 
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Boilerplate:  All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
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[Paul Smith]

On Wed, Jul 28, 2021 at 5:53 AM Tim via users
<users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  Paul Smith,
>  >> From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand
>  >> mouse click recognized. Any ideas?
>
>  Tom Horsley:
>  > Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely.
>
>  I've come across many a mouse where the soldering of the switch to the
>  printed circuit board has mechanically failed, either through just the
>  normal use of the mouse, or when mice get dropped and land on a button.
>
>  That's easily fixed by resoldering it.  But if you don't have the
>  tools, and the particular mouse isn't worth the effort of trying to fix
>  it, it's usually far easier just to get a new one. 
Thanks to all who have answered!

My surprise is that I bought my mouse not so long ago (less than one year).

Paul

[Tim]

On Wed, 2021-07-28 at 12:49 +0100, Paul Smith wrote:
>  My surprise is that I bought my mouse not so long ago (less than one
>  year). 
Unfortunately, with today's build quality, that's no big surprise.

Mice buttons get a lot of clicking.  There used to be an app (I forget
on which OS) that told you how many miles your mouse had moved, and
counted the clicks.

I also wouldn't be surprised about mice dying from static electricity
shocks.  With a plastic mouse being dragged across plastic coated
desktops, etc, it'd be easy to zap the things to death.

The mice with proper microswitches tend to last the best, the switches
are designed for a lot of use with a light press, so the body of the
mouse can be designed to not stress the switch and circuit board.  The
switch will click over before it's hard pressed against the mechanical
stops (inside, it's sprung in a bit of a fancy manner), and it can be
mounted so the mouse's plastic button never presses the switch's button
hard up against the body of the switch (though I've yet to see a mouse
actually designed that way).

The ones with membrane/tactile switches require more effort to press,
so that weakens the solder quicker.  And the mechanical design of them
is generally poor.

A microswitch (just imagine it without the metal lever on top):
https://www.jaycar.com.au/spdt-125v-3a-sub-miniature-micro-switch-with-le...

A membrane/tactile switch:
https://www.jaycar.com.au/0-7mm-spst-micro-tactile-switch/p/SP0600

Some mice will falsely claim to use microswitches when they've really
used the other type.  Microswitches click over with a ticky click
sound, the others tend to make more of a thud.

When switches and soldering goes bad, it's common to find that you get
one click being mistaken for several, and/or having to press extra hard
to get the button to work.  Mice are supposed to have debouncing
circuitry inside them (it's handled in the hardware of the mouse,
itself), but that's really only meant to deal with a few milliseconds
of switch contact bouncing that a normal switch has.  A bad switch
could exceed it's abilities, and broken soldering almost definitely
would.

The double-click timeout mouse preferences in your computer aren't
really designed to manage switch mechanical debouncing, that's more to
do with dealing with how users press the buttons.

-- 
 
uname -rsvp
Linux 3.10.0-1160.36.2.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Jul 21 11:57:15 UTC 2021 x86_64
 
Boilerplate:  All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.

[George N. White III]

On Wed, 28 Jul 2021 at 01:53, Tim via users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
wrote:

>  Paul Smith,
>  >> From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand
>  >> mouse click recognized. Any ideas?
>
>  Tom Horsley:
>  > Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely.
>
>  I've come across many a mouse where the soldering of the switch to the
>  printed circuit board has mechanically failed, either through just the
>  normal use of the mouse, or when mice get dropped and land on a button.
>  
50 years ago in college I had a weekend job in the repair shop of a music
and
electronics store.  The majority of the repairs were for bad solder joints
or breaks
in circuit board traces, mostly cheap portable TV's.  Some failure modes
remain
too expensive to eliminate in manufacturing that targets low end prices.

-- 
George N. White III

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Tue, 2021-07-27 at 20:38 +0100, Paul Smith wrote:
>  Dear All,
>  
>  From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand
>  mouse click recognized. Any ideas? 
Try a different mouse.

poc