Mouse logging multiple clicks

Topic

New Reply

Hi Woody,

My mouse “appears to be” logging two clicks for each left button push. It does not seem to occur for each click but probably around 80% of the clicks.

For example, when I finish reading an email and click the delete button,  it will sometimes delete the following email as well. Often, when I single click on a word to correct a letter, it might highlight the whole word. I have been experiencing this problem for the last two to three months.

My computer is a Dell Desktop, Core  I3 processor, Windows 7 OS. Upgraded to Windows 10 when it first came out with no problems.

To date I have

– switched the mouse out for another to no avail.

 -loaded all of the current Windows 10 updates

– have fixed any Ccleaner found registry issues.

– Contacted Dell to see if they could send me drivers for the mouse, but they only want to help if I pay a small fortune for their out of warranty service agreement.

Do you have any suggestions to remedy the situation?

I enjoy reading your newsletter although some of it is beyond my level as technology advances.

Thanks

Ben

Reply | Quote

Replies

I would have suspected the mouse button, but you have tried another one.

Do you have any “keyboard helper” apps loaded?
Is it only in email?
Does it perform a double click (fast) or two clicks a second or so apart?
Have you run an anti virus scan on the machine?

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

Hi Paul,

No keyboard helper apps are installed.
The double clicking acts up regardless of the application that I am running. Email was an example.
Double click is extremely fast, the audio of the click is only a single click.
I have AVG running on the machine.

Thanks,
Ben

Reply | Quote

Is it only happening with a left click, or is right-click also affected?  What about the scroll wheel?  What type and brand of mouse?  If the mouse is connected via USB (including a wireless receiver), have you tried a different USB port?  (A mouse does not need USB3, by the way.)  Go to Settings > Devices > Mouse, and carefully go through all the settings, especially on the right, under “Related settings”.  In Device Manager, under “Mice and other pointing devices”, find the mouse, right-click (assuming it will work), then Properties.  In the Driver tab, make a note of the current driver version, then go to the manufacturer’s website to see if a later version is available.  You should not have to pay a small fortune for a new driver, if one exists.

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 20H2

Reply | Quote

I only notice it on the left click.

The type of mouse really doesn’t matter since I had swapped it out for a known good mouse.

The speed of the click was found to be midpoint of the speeds. I dropped it down to 25% and saw no improvement.

I will check for other driver when I return next week.

Thanks

Reply | Quote

There’s an option in the mouse settings somewhere to “detect accidental double clicks.” I can’t remember exactly where it is, as my memory of Windows stuff is fading, but it’s a means of compensating for contact bounce in the microswitches inside the mouse.

Contact bounce is inherent within all microswitches, and it is the job of the firmware of a given device to filter that out and deliver accurate click events, but if it was not well done, or if the switch characteristics have changed, perhaps by a bit of corrosion, they may no longer work. You press the mouse button once, but inside the microswitch, the contacts bounce and register more than one click, generally more rapidly than a human would ever register them intentionally. If you depress the button slowly and deliberately and the issue goes away, it’s probably contact bounce.

If the “detect accidental double clicks” option doesn’t work, some cleaning of the microswitches (if you can get to them) with contact cleaner could help. My Corsair mouse had really nasty bounce, but I used some contact cleaner and it has resolved, once I finally got the cleaner in where it needs to be. If I could take the mouse apart to get a clear view of the switches, it would make it easier, but it’s riveted together, and taking it apart would destroy it.

I know you said you tried another mouse, but it would not be impossible to have more than one that has some level of bounce. If you regularly use the other mouse with a PC that has the “detect accidental double clicks” setting on, that could explain why it’s not happening there too.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

Reply | Quote

I would start with simple check, what is your double click speed

Old Conrol panel -> Mouse -> Buttons

You can try to adjust double click speed. Otherwise I would blame the mouse itself. Cleaning the mouse can be worth trying too.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

Reply | Quote

I think this is the setting you need.
Control Panel->File Ewplorer Options->General

Reply | Quote

My machine was set to open a file with a double click. I did switch to the single click with no change realized for the double-clicking problem of my mouse in emails and other applications. Apparently, this is only a feature for the file explorer application in windows. Thanks

Reply | Quote