I'm having a strange problem with a usb mouse: it works fine for a while, then stops responding. Unplug/replug and it works again - but only for a while. Did not experience this on the same hardware with Fedora Core 1.

The mouse is a Logitech Trackball Wheelmouse.
The system is a HP pavilion laptop.
The OS is Fedora Core 3.

The xorg.conf sections involved are:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Protocol" "Auto"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
# Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection
(I've been playing with the protocol - that's why there's two, but one is disabled. The Xorg wiki documents said that "Auto" was the appropriate choice for usb.)
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
# InputDevice "Synaptics" "AlwaysCore"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
(The synaptics line is for the touchpad that I've commented out to diagnose the usb mouse. It's InputDevice section is also commented out.)
/sbin/lsusb reports this:
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:c404 Logitech, Inc. TrackMan Wheel
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
dmesg reports nothing unusual - except the usb disconnects/reconnects when I hot swap the mouse to get it working again.
This seems to be an X issue. It just seems to forget that the usb mouse is there.

Any ideas?
Does anyone know where to find out about other option settings for mouse-type Input Devices in xorg.conf (like timing constraints, maybe?)

I am using FC3, with an optical USB mouse from dell. I get the same problem. Every now and then, out of nowhere, the mouse stops working. I can't figure out anything that could be causing such a problem...

yeah well mine simply doesnt work. i start it and my mouse stays stupidly in the middle of the screen.
stubborn little animal.

I have or had the same problem with my Kensington Expert Mouse Trackball, Model 64325, which is both USB and PS/2. ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...0K4LD?v=glance )

Intermittently the mouse disappears or the system locks up because of it. I don't have a IRQ sharing problem, which you can find out by typing: cat /proc/interrupts from a console session and it's not a usb driver issue because other usb devices work with no issues. The trackball and scroll ring work perfectly when its being used in the PS/2 mode so it's not the trackball, which by the way is an optical trackball as in laser ball.

The problem went away recently, but is only because I'm not using Fedora Core anymore.

Between this and the exploit that got me hacked several times which FC1-3 have with OpenSSL, I won't be going back to Fedora or RedHat until they get their security priorities straight before releasing distro's to the public that are unstable and insecure.

How did you get the trackball working finally?
I have this same one, and while it works great under windows, it's kinda mediocre under Linux. I tried the ThinkingMousePS/2 protocol like is often suggested, but the cursor keeps snapping back to the bottom left corner of the screen. I'm using Slackware Current. What Xorg settings do you use for the trackball?

thanks.