USB optical wheel mouse jumps page, causes problem

[nubc]

I'm not entirely sure which events cause this behavior of my Microsoft-branded USB basic optical wheel mouse, but I believe that clicking a link or hovering over a popup causes the mouse pointer position to jump off page or to the periphery of the page (eg, scroll bar area). Then the next time the wheel is spun, this action closes all or most windows such that each window must be reopened manually. It's a constant, random, annoying happening on my desktop, that spinning the wheel on the mouse causes all windows to close, because the mouse has mysteriously jumped off page. If I click a thus closed window still represented on the task bar, only the title bar and task bar are visible, but clicking the expand option on the right in the title bar restores the window. The tedium of restoring windows can be very inconvenient if I have 10 windows running, which have been accidentally closed by moving the wheel on the mouse. Sometimes I can reverse the window closings by spinning the mouse in the other direction, but success of this maneuver is rather infrequent, because I have usually moved the mouse elsewhere by the time I realize that windows have been accidentally closed.

[duke93535]

Try another mouse, we have had the same thing happen with a MS mouse (like your’s) after a few years of use, the contacts get dirty and the springs get tired. They start acting odd.

[Tote]

I might have the wrong end of the stick, but wasn't there a feature in one of the puppies, Wary I think, where scrolling the mouse wheel when the cursor was at the edge of the screen/ off screen allowed/caused you to cycle through the desktops? I remember it irritated me when I did it by accident. There's probably a way to turn off that feature.

Not even sure if that's anything to do with your problem.

[nubc]

Thanks Tote, you might have something there. I am using Wary 5.1.1. I too have experienced the problem with accidentally switching desktops, but the mass window closings are much more common. Now where are the mouse settings? Probably the same place as touchpad settings and such. I found it ' /etc/X11/xorg.conf ' but I don't see a setting right off. I would very much like to disable the feature described by Tote.
A few more instances when mouse jumps page. When I click Back and the page changes, the mouse has jumped off the page when the new page loads. Just this morning, the mouse pointer was about an inch above the task bar, when I scrolled down, the mouse pointer followed the page and also went down behind the task bar. Funky.

...after a few years of use, the contacts get dirty and the springs get tired

It's an optical mouse, so there aren't that many parts that could get worn or dirty. Just the clickers and the scroll wheel. The mouse itself is clean and almost like new. I just purchased an optical wheel mouse with no hinge for the clickers, rather, the plastic just deflects. Will give that a try.