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My gateway laptop mouse pointer locks after a while of no use. I am referring to built in touch pad.

How can I shutdown without a mouse? How can I restart the mouse? How can I eliminate the problem?

Per a suggestion I ran 

larry@larry-Satellite-C70-A:~$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ TOSHIBA Web Camera - HD                   id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Toshiba input device                      id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
Terrance
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lle
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  • Is it a wireless mouse? Can you tell more about hardware? – dedunu Nov 13 '15 at 02:54
  • Can you run xinput from the terminal and edit your question to include the output? (This doesn't mean that I know the answer - it is just something you should probably include so that others can better help you.) – KGIII Nov 13 '15 at 03:02
  • Also, see this for maybe an answer and a work-around until you get an answer. – KGIII Nov 13 '15 at 03:04

2 Answers2

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This worked for me with a similar problem (might not work if you don't have a Synaptic touchpad).

  • Open terminal (Press CtrlAltT)
  • Type synclient TouchpadOff=0 and press enter. This should reactivate the Touchpad.

If you just need to turn off your computer without a mouse, just open terminal (CtrlAltT) and type:

sudo poweroff

For a restart type:

sudo reboot
Moose
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  • Thanks, doesn't work on my gateway which has the problem. Does turn the touchpad on and off on my Toshiba Satellite. – lle Nov 14 '15 at 00:43
  • Alas.. It was worth a shot. And your question implied you also want to know how to shut down your computer w/o a mouse. So I added that to the answer. – Moose Nov 14 '15 at 00:54
  • Yes I did, and now I know, thanks to your answer. – lle Nov 15 '15 at 03:44
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Since I submitted this question I have worked out a solution to it.

Recovering from a hung mouse pointer is "easy to do" if you have my script "mykitty" installed.

To install it just copy it from the public folder at
https://spideroak.com/browse/share/lle_public1/lle to your home folder.

Then open a terminal window by hitting the t key while holding down the control and alt keys. Hit the enter key.

At the prompt, enter ./mykitty -h then hit the enter key. The help text will be displayed.

When your mouse hangs run ./mykitty to get the mouse running again.

If that fails to free the mouse run ./mykitty -r to restart your system.

If you find this solution to is useful, please promote it. Otherwise you have been reminded that "easy to do is easy to say".

lle
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