Left-Click Selects or Grabs Instead of Acting Normally

[64bitguy]

Hi

Okay... I've had this problem for a long while on various machines and it is now really annoying me. I've search Ubuntu and Mint forums high and low and just can't figure it out.

I'm running 18.3 Cinnamon FYI.

The symptom is this: When browsing (I use Chrome mostly) and I go to left click on something, in many (okay, MOST) cases it "grabs" the selection instead of just inserting or a pointer or doing the anticipated action.

I notice this a TON when I go into google images for example. I left click on a picture to expand it; however, the browser thinks I'm grabbing it for a drag-and-drop OR it will grab (highlighting and selecting) an entire row instead of the just letting me click on the image to expand its size (the normal thing a single-left-click does).

This also happens when I am using any kind of a text editor in a forum as well. I think I'm re-positioning my mouse pointer; but instead a single-left-click will try to select the whole text area and/or all of the text within it.

I've also had this happen in Libre Office and in other applications as well; but as I mainly browse, I notice it mostly when surfing.

Does anyone know how to make it so a left-click is just a single left-click?

I'm always using a plain USB Optical Mouse. (I have tried dozens... just a regular plain jane Microsoft, Dell or other standard two-button with scroll wheel USB Optical Mouse). Sorry, I'm old school and hate touch-pads.

Any advise here is greatly appreciated!

[lmuserx4849]

This sounds like sensitivity.

I'm currently a KDE user, but the concepts should be the same, just a different implementation.

First I'd look in Cinnamon's System Settings for anything dealing with input devices or specifically the mouse.

There are various solutions using the command xinput in a startup script to change sensitivity.

However, I'd try this https://askubuntu.com/questions/151900/ ... in-lubuntu. The change can be done using the dconf-editor or from the command line. I know it say lubuntu, but cinnamon and lubuntu are both based on gnome.

# First list value. On a Mate machine (gnome based), using a plain 2-button wheel mouse, the value is 8
gsettings list-recursively | grep -i 'peripherals.mouse drag'

# Set the value. Note: to display value change set to get and remove the last digits
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse drag-threshold 30

If you use the dconf-editor, there'll be a little help at the bottom.

[64bitguy]

Sadly making this alteration had no impacts to the described symptoms.

Any other ideas?

[lmuserx4849]

Just to verify:
- 18.3 Cinnamon
- the issue happens in all applications, not just chrome
- you have tried another mouse (or was that a dozen of them )
- Desktop or laptop?
- System setup for double-click or single-click?

Let's step back and take another route:

- Have you tried a different mouse pad. One without any designs. Just a plain dark colored pad.
- Clean your mouse sensors.
- Is a keyboard key stuck, like Shift. Can you try another keyboard or clean your current one. If you click text and then Shift-click some place else the text is selected.
- Touchpad was mentioned. Is it turned-off How to disable the touchpad?<Solved>

[Mute Ant]

Certainly the XFCE environment has a 'No Click' setting. You hover over an item and after a delay. it is selected as though you had clicked it. It >sounds< like you have this switched on, so your one-click is counting as two?