253115 - Window scrolling is erratic when using ThinkPad 3rd mouse button for scrolling

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Julius]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.2

Clicking the 3rd mouse button on a ThinkPad X40 should allow the user to scroll
the window in the direction the mouse is moved. On some websites, (e.g.
www.yahoo.com), the functionality works except the cursor redraws erratically.
On other websites (e.g.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox) the functionality
does not work at all (cursor redraws erratically but the page does not scroll).

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to any web page
2. Click and hold 3rd mouse button and then drag the cursor up or down

Actual Results:  
The page does not scroll or the page scrolls but the cursor redraws erratically 

Expected Results:  
Page should scroll and the cursor should not redraw erratically (note that this
is the behavior experienced in other apps such as MS Office)

Comment 1

[Aaron Leventhal]

Mike, who should have this one?

Comment 2

[zb]

for what its worth:
Thinkpad T20 owner here; laptop has similar 3rd mouse button.
Scroll functions normally, except there are wierd scrolling behavior seen on
some sites having iframes. But thats a non-thinkpad specific bug here:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=223542
Weird scrolling using autoscroll over iframe

Julius, is that the same behaviour you are seeing?

Comment 3

[Aaron Leventhal]

Robert, any ideas?

Comment 4

[Julius]

zb -- you are going to laugh but I can't recreate the bug you cited in your
follow-up (I also tried the other URL that was mentioned by someone else in that
bug report). The scrolling works fine for me on those pages except for the
redraw which remains erratic like on all other pages I view (almost looks like
the cursor is rapidly jumping back and forth from its current location to some
other location and then back again). Again, this is the only app that exhibits
this behavior -- other apps on this machine behave nicely. 

Additionally, I did figure out that scrolling does not work on the
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox page when you click to
enter one of the text fields. For example if you click on the "details" field
(cursor will appear there) and then try to scroll using the 3rd button, nothing
will happen. However, if you take the focus off the field by clicking on the
text above the field, the page will scroll albiet with the weird redraw.

FYI -- I am using Firefox 0.9.3 and v3.12 of the IBM trackpoint driver.

Comment 5

[zb]

Julius:

its great that u posted IBM trackpoint driver version.
I do NOT currently have this driver installed; am using the generic one that
comes with MS win xp (which supports middle-button auto-scroll etc).
important difference. thanks for bringing that up. i will try re-installing ibm
driver if possible and report back. can u also try removing it and check? thanks!


ps: i am able to scroll fine even when positioned in details textbox, but since
we are using different drivers, that doesnt say much.
ps2: Regarding replicating that other bug... its a bit hard to do. I can
replicate 1 out of 4 tries. trick is to approach another iframe when already
scrolling. anyway the cause for it is pretty clear from #2 and #3 comments there. 

Comment 6

[zb]

*** able to replicate consistently, after installing IBM TrackPoint Driver 3.12
for T20/X40. ***
Suggested cause: IBM driver bug. Recommend using win default driver.

Steps:
Installed driver. rebooted. able to replicate scroll problem.
uninstalled. rebooted. Default driver scrolls fine with Trackpoint.

Supporting doc: This Driver's last few release notes specify bug fixes to
support scrolling in Netscape 6, outlook, access, frontpage, Eudora etc. 
Resolution: uninstall IBM driver. default win xp driver supports Trackpoint better.

Driver page:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4KMUYL
Release doc: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/tracpt2k.txt

Comment 7

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Can you be more specific on "redraws erratically"?

Are you saying that it doesn't stay a scrollbar pointer all the time, that it
blinks as you are scrolling?

Comment 8

[Julius]

Michael --

Picture the scrolling cursor (baby scoll bars with arrow in the middle). Now
picture a normal Windows cursor (arrow) half an inch to the right of the
scrolling cursor. Now imagine very rapidly jumping back and forth between the
two cursors described above while while scrolling.

zb --

Thanks for posting a workaround and for confirming that the problem is not
specific to my laptop or my imagination :)

julius

Comment 9

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I spoke to the thinkpad developers and we understand why this is happening.
We're doing some investigation.

Comment 10

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Just to clarify one thing here - are you using the trackpoint driver 3.12 or are
you using the UltraNav driver (the one that supports the trackpad)

Comment 11

[Julius]

IBM PS2 Trackpoint (trackpoint driver 3.12) is the only device installed under
Mice and Other Pointing Devices. I did not install UltraNav so unless it is
installed by default and does not appear under Mice and Other Pointing Devices,
it is not on my machine.

Comment 12

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

How would you feel if the behavior in Mozilla was different then other apps?

Instead of the flicker, you just got a regular mouse pointer (not the scroll bar
at all)

Would that be better than the flicker?

Note I am continuing to investigate the possibility of fixing this in Mozilla
somehow.

Comment 13

[Julius]

Hi Michael.

Personally, I'd prefer to have it be a normal arrow since the flickering draws
your eyes away from the content of the page and towards the flicker.

julius

Comment 14

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Attachment: Fix for problem

OK, so I can fix the problem so that future drivers work.

That's what this is.

I'll work with the thinkpad driver guy to get him to remove his special Mozilla
check.

Comment 15

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Comment on attachment 156531 [details] [diff] [review]
Fix for problem

That's wrong. I would still need the thinkpad check.

Comment 16

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

OK, so after discussing this with the thinkpad folk, we are going to fix it in
the driver.

When you scroll with Mozilla, you'll just get the arrow, no flashing.

I'll close this bug when we have a fixed driver.

Comment 17

[agarberisoft]

I too have troubles with a ThinkPad middle button, but my is more drastic!

PC: IBM ThinkPad R31
OS: Windows 2000 SP4
FX: Firefox 1.5 Beta 2

BUG: middle button does not work at all!
I cannot click with and I cannot scroll (click and drag) with it!

Note that every other program in my PC works correctly.

Comment 18

[agarberisoft]

I was using Windows 2000 drivers and scroll was not working, so I installed IBM (Lenovo) Drivers and now it is better!

Good:
- I can scroll the page
Bad:
- I cannot click with middle button (to open a link in a new tab)
- while I scroll the page, the mouse icon flashes a lot (it alternates the scroll icon with a big mouse icon, never seen before!)
- the scroll is not very smooth

Firefox 1.5 RC1
Windows 2000 SP4
IBM (Lenovo) TrackPoint Software ver. 3.55.0.0

Comment 19

[Jonathan Pritchard]

I can confirm this behaviour in SeaMonkey 1.0.6 with Thinkpad T41p, using the trackpad scroll feature.

Comment 20

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I'm not with IBM anymore nor do I have a Thinkpad, so I can't say whether the Thinkpad teams fixed this or not, nor can I work on it.

Comment 21

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

I'm unable to reproduce any issues using the third mouse button on my Thinkpad W520. Please reopen if you are still able to reproduce this.