Bdtyktl

So I just installed Ubuntu 14.04 tonight and I'm having this weird issue with my mouse and window focus.

I can't seem to click on any Unity Launcher icons. More over I can't click on unfocused windows to bring them to the front. It doesn't work.

I don't know how better to explain this. It is seemingly random when I can click on something inside a window. I can't even click on the "X" button to close or the title bar to move the window around most of the time. What's causing this behaviour?

I really want to start using Ubuntu as my main desktop but I've always had weird issues like this when I would test out a release. In a VM I don't have problems but after a real install I get problems.

Edit: Some more information, my mouse is a USB RAT5 gaming mouse. Not that I think it's the physical mouse that's broke...and the pointer doesn't freeze or anything. I just can't click on anything the majority of the time.

So I kept looking around and the problem seems to have been the type of mouse I have. I found a thread on the Ubuntu forums by a user with a similar mouse having a problem that sounded like mine. In the thread it was suggested to (create and) edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf files with the following:

Section "InputClass"

    Identifier "Mouse Remap"

    MatchProduct "Saitek Cyborg R.A.T.5 Mouse"

    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"

    Option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 9 10 11 12 0 0 0"

EndSection

And then I restarted my computer.

I have RAT5 gaming mouse and the use from the thread has the RAT7 gaming mouse.
It has been a day since I implemented the fix and there have been no problems. Didn't bother looking into why it was buggy but I know the above configuration fixed it.

Thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2152976

A search for a similar problem brought me here. Left mouse click doesn't work anymore, neither on the mouse itself nor on touch pad. In my case it is a matter of a bluetooth mouse.

My solution was to remove the mouse from the list of paired bluetooth devices (Dash → Bluetooth), switch off the mouse and re-pair it after a reboot.

I had this on 16.04 with a laptop and a USB mouse connected. USB mouse didn't work. Clicking once on the laptop's touchpad got the mouse's buttons to work again.

I found a solution to similar focus problem. A part of it was that mouse focus remained locked to one window but keyboard focus was in another. I fixed it by running:

sudo apt install wmctrl

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/click_to_focus -s true 

wmctrl -R WindowName 

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/click_to_focus -s false

Here are the links to original answer and bug report.

I had this problem with a wireless mouse on an Asus laptop. My touch pad, that I prefer not to use, was actually doing the same.

I tried a bunch of things, but in the end what fixed it was to unplug the usb receiver for my mouse, and plug it back in. Everything back to normal.

Not even a full restart did the same.