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Mouse clicks not dispatched on Windows 7 starting August 2017 when wireless MS Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse is enabled
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repro-1402874472.md

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Have Windows 7 fully patched (September-October 2017 patch level).
  2. Get MS sculpt ergonomic mouse.
  3. Connect the USB dongle that ships with the mouse to the USB port of the machine.
  4. Enable the mouse via a physical switch on the bottom side of the mouse. (for information, I have a mouse + keyboard, aka Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-us/products/keyboards/sculpt-ergonomic-desktop/l5v-00001 that share the same USB dongle).
  5. Open Sublime Text 3, or Intellij IDEA, or Android Studio 2.3. Try to type or select some text.

!! unable to click anywhere in the text edit component, click menu entries & menu buttons.

Now, disable the wireless mouse via a physical switch. Connect a standard wired mouse.

!! Everything works normally.

Other software affected by the bug:

  • Windows task bar (unable to click program entries in task bar)
  • Hipchat 4 (unable to change the room, or focus the text input field)
  • <textarea>s in Firefox...

Not always all of them are affected at the same time, but typically most are affected at the same time.

Other info

  • Reproducible with both Aero Theme and Classic Theme.
  • Computer: Dell Latitude E6540 laptop.
  • I have multi-monitor setup, 3 monitors (2 external + laptop built-in). Top-left is primary, but bug is reproducible in any setup.
  • Around September I realized that KB4034664 is the cause and uninstalling it fixed the problem. But right now it happens even without KB4034664, so some subsequent updates might be linked to it too.
  • I typically have 2 mice connected to my machine, a wired one, and a wireless MS sculpt ergonomic. Normally this setup works fine and I can use both mouse interchangeably. But since the problem discussed here started happening, when the wireless mouse is enabled and USB dongle plugged in, the wired mouse is also affected (i.e. clicking either the wired or the wireless mouse button in any of the affected applications DOES NOT trigger the desired action - as if the mouse click event was not correctly dispatched).

Additional info regarding the mouse

  • Reproducible with Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center 3.1.250.0 installed, or without it.
  • Since the problem started happening, the mouse drains the batteries within a week. Normally the batteries lasted for multiple months.

Now the most interesting part:

  • When the mouse is enabled (hence the problem is reproducible), I tried removing the USB dongle from the port (without disabling the mouse physical switch beforehand). After this operation, the bug is still reproducible, i.e. some parts of UI of Windows and apps are not clickable.
  • Then I disable the mouse with physical switch -> problem still occurs
  • Then I plug again the USB dongle (while mouse is off) -> problem still occurs
  • I enable again the mouse physical switch -> problem still occurs
  • I disable the mouse physical switch while the USB dongle is plugged -> problem goes away

To summarize, the fact of connecting the USB dongle + enabling the physical switch of the mouse changes the internal state of Windows operating system and makes the problem occur.

The only way to make the problem go away at that point is to disable the physical switch of the mouse while the USB dongle is connected. Removing the USB dongle before disabling the mouse has no effect.

All in all, this seems to be a software problem in Windows.

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