firefox - pointer blinking when over a link

I too can confirm this problem. I suspect after a number of Xorg packages were upgraded, I find that my cursor now does what the bug reporter describes. I have attached an image of what happened when I hovered over a link on a forum I use. There cursor should be a hand in the picture, but since the updates, it changes to a cursor when a tooltip comes up half the time. Sometimes, the cursor can flicker between a hand and a pointer three times before it remains a pointer (as opposed to a hand as it should do when hovering over a link).

Only noticed this happening on Firefox 3.05+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 and Firefox 3.1~b2+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 using Jaunty.

I too will confirm this behavior . and that it happens only in firefox 3.05 and 3.1 and in seamonkey . it does NOT occur in arora ,dillo ,epiphany , galeon or opera 9.62 or 10.0A1 . also if one goes to system>preferences>mouse and reduces the speed by one increment the behavior disapears in firefox and remains gone even if the speed is returned to its former value until FF is closed and reopened at which time the behavior is back .I am running 64bit ubuntu with the nvidia 180.16 video driver (hand installed from nvidia) and ignoreabi added to xorg.conf , system is uptodate as of dec 21 AM ( eastcoast US) , this behavior is also reported with the 180.16 driver from PPA .

I can confirm this to for Jaunty and firefox 3.05.

But,

What also happens sometimes to me is that my mouse pointer "flashes" on the desktop, after starting Ubuntu, and network-manager is making a connection with wireless. Don't know if this also has to with this bug, but maybe the problem is in the xorg and not firefox?

I'd like to join in the chorus of people who also has this complaint. I can't use dropdown menus on websites because it flickers back and forth between the hand and the pointer. However unlike folks here, I'm using the latest Swiftfox build. Given that I have not updated Swiftfox in several weeks but the issue started last week, it's safe to suggest it's not an issue with Swiftfox.

(Can somebody please link this bug to the proper xserver launchpad entry?)

Confirming for Jaunty with the following useragents.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008121711 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.0.5 ID:2008111616

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1b3pre) Gecko/20081222 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Shiretoko/3.1b3pre ID:20081222022208

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20081222 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Minefield/3.2a1pre ID:20081222024048

Just going to confirm that I get this on Shiretoko on my Jaunty laptop, but of course, not on my Intrepid desktop.

This appears to be a bug somewhere between the X server and libXi, the X Input client library. Obviously it can't be a regression in Firefox, because using the same version of Firefox as before should not cause bugs in the X client or server.

I have confirmed this bug on two _completely_ unrelated systems: Nvidia GTX 280 based system running Ubuntu Jaunty with Nvidia driver 180.16, and a Lenovo ThinkPad X61T (Intel graphics) running Fedora 10 + Rawhide. It seems to be independent of the graphics driver, at least, and the "IgnoreABI" option is not necessary for Intel: they are keeping their open source driver up to date with the Xi and X11 ABIs.

I have spoken with one of the key players in the X.Org development process, Keith Packard, on #intel-gfx on Freenode. Apparently this is a known issue, and as of December 20th or so, it had not been addressed even if you were to check out and compile your own X.Org stack (libraries and server) from FreeDesktop.org GIT. Keith also said that this issue is being worked on.

Unless Canonical has any X.Org experts who can work around this problem, the only "real" solution seems to be waiting for the person who is assigned to fix it (presumably someone at Tungsten, Intel, or Red Hat).

Also, sojourner: I was unable to confirm your stated workaround of reducing the mouse sensitivity, acceleration, or both, in order to stop the bug from occurring. I did notice that the *first* time I hovered over a link after initially changing the sensitivity, there was no flickering; but as soon as I hovered over a different link, the behavior was back. Moving the sliders further after that had no effect.

Just sit back and hope this is fixed upstream before we are too frozen to update the affected packages (most likely libXi and xserver-xorg-core). Since this is a bug that would be fairly sloppy to include in a release, though, Canonical may want to consider a contingency plan of reverting to a stable Xorg 7.4 release for Jaunty.

-Sean

I have had something occur on both Firefox and Thunderbird lately, where the pointer changed to a left-right resize arrow if I hover over any link, but that only seems to be happening every now and again. Most times, the pointer becomes a hand over a link as normal, or shows the problems described above if the link has a tooltip attached to it.

This also happens in prism applications (like prism-google-mail or prism-facebook).

Occurs for me as well, but I'd also like to point out that it doesn't seem to do this while using firefox in "full screen" mode. Odd.

I confirm that Michael, it doesn't occur in full-screen.

Confirmed on Jaunty in Firefox 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2 nightly (from ftp.mozilla.org), does not occur on fullscreen.

Also happens on tooltips for me: on fullscreen they're visible, else they show and then disappear after a fraction of a second. Try for example http://www.xkcd.com/, over the comics image.

Confirming that this bug does not occur in fullscreen mode.

Got this bug too. Firefox also flickers with me.
 Happens with Firefox 3.0.5 and 3.1-b2.
Happens with Fullscreen too.

The best workaround I can find is to right click on the page. It seems to temporarily fix the flickering. If you switch tabs or change window focus you need to do it again, but if you're doing something that requires proper input handling in Firefox it may be your only option.

Kevin, right, confirmed, right click makes it go away.

Confirming that this also affects the autocomplete feature of the address bar.

Right clicking fixes the issue.

Perhaps "dirty workaround" would be a better description.

I was just checking something on the Yahoo homepage and then clicked on a slideshow to a related article and my page kept minimizing too.