Left nub won't move cursor left

[freds_shadow]

My left nub occasionally refuses to move the cursor left. This has happened in games and on the desktop.


I'm wondering if others experience this as normal behaviour or if it's a sign of failing hardware.


Is there a way, short of rebooting, of 'resetting' the nubs. Rebooting presumably 'resets' something, so is there a script that runs on startup that can be rerun to re-initialize the nub? Is there a menu option I'm too blind to see?


This latest time I got it working again when I noticed that while pressing left does nothing rotating towards the left does (ie, press up, hold, rotate the nub toward the left). It starts crawling in that direction, and after a few times, approaching from top and bottom, it resumed working, slowly and then normally.


I don't know if that solution will work for anyone else or even if it will work for me next time. It won't help alot if I'm in the middle of a firefight or something, though.


I'm sure this was at least touched on elsewhere, but I couldn't find it in search, and thought my 'solution' might be noteworthy and helpful to someone else.

 

[Prometheus]

This is due to the automatic calibration, and whilst it's a bit annoying, as far as I know (and as far as I can guess from your description) it is normal.


I've found that once I got used to it, it didn't occur anymore, but there is an option somewhere in the Xfce menu to reset the nubs without having to reboot the machine. Off of the top of my head, I can no longer recall where it is, but I believe it's in "Settings" somewhere.

 

[freds_shadow]

It doesn't happen right after boot, though, which is what I'd assume would happen if the auto-calibration was the culprit. It happens after it's already been used and functioning normally (though I can't say for how long. This time only 5 minutes). Maybe it's a firmware bug. I've only encountered it 3 or 4 times in the 2 to 4 months I've had a pandora, though.


I didn't notice the nub configuration offering an option to reset/reinitialize other than the option to reset the assigned functions. Or at least I've always assumed that was their function. I'll have to try that next time.

 

[Prometheus]

My apologies, I should have been clearer. What happens is that the nubs are recalibrating all the time - that's why this would occur whilst using them, rather than right after booting.


I'm pretty sure that the reset option resets them, rather than undoing any assigned functions, but please take that with a pinch of salt, as I've never changed the nubs' functions, nor have I had to use the reset option more than a couple of times.


One other thing to try, which some have reported lessening that behaviour when it becomes particularly frequent, is to take the battery out of the machine for ten to twenty minutes. I have no idea what difference that makes, but I figure it's worth mentioning just in case it might help.

 

[Dark_Link]

it happens to me at times you can take the battery out for 10 min or you can just reflash it. i havent run into this issue on hotfix 6 beta yet.

 

[freds_shadow]

Unfortunately I can confirm that it still happens with hotfix 6 beta, as I had flashed it the night before the most recent occurrence. Oh well.

 

[milkshake]

this happens to me every so often too but only whilst playing super geometry dust (which is REAL annoying)

 

[Mr_Loon]

Interesting, I've had this problem too also with the left nub refusing to go left, also solved it by removing the battery.


Makes me wonder if there may be some kind of software problem at the root of this, or are other people having problems with other directions, say the right nub moving up. We should test this extensively by playing Super Geometry Dust IMHO.

 

[DaMummy]

my right nub struggles to move right, which i needed as i always used right nub as mouse movement. as described above, if i do a quarter circle, say move it from top ro left, the go across to right, it works fine. but going from center to right, it moves very slowly

 

[freds_shadow]

I found that the first time I did top (or bottom) to rotate left it was barely moving left. Doing it a few more times seemed to 'loosen' it up, so to speak, and then it worked fine again. Guess the nub got a muscle cramp. ;-)