Ubuntu – USB mouse lag with XFCE on Ubuntu 18.04, Xorg display

mouseusbxfce

I upgraded from ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04, and disabled Wayland and enabled the Xorg display. I use the xfce desktop on a Lenovo T430s. After a few seconds of inactivity, my Logitech USB mouse is unresponsive until I move it around for a couple of seconds and/or depress a button or the center wheel. The problem is "fixed" by unplugging and re-plugging in the USB dongle … until the next reboot.

  • The problem does not happen with the default ubuntu desktop.
  • The problem does not depend on which USB port the dongle is plugged
    in to.
  • The same behavior occurs for two different Logitech mouse/dongle
    pairs.
  • I never had this issue using xfce with ubuntu 16.04.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Best Answer

I finally figured out the problem, which is not likely to affect anyone else in the universe, but here's the solution anyway. As part of an autostart script for Xfce, I was using powertop to make power-saving adjustments (powertop --auto-tune). This included power management for the USB Logitech receiver, which caused the USB mouse to fall asleep after a few seconds of inactivity.

I replaced my powertop command with an excellent script (https://askubuntu.com/a/1026527/824514) that autotunes powertop but subsequently disables power management for USB devices using the Human Interface Device driver.

I don't know why I didn't have this problem in ubuntu 16.04, nor do I care to think about it.

Thanks to Ric Klaren for the script, and to Chris Pavlovich at Oregon State University for helping me identify the problem.

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