Need help with "ghost clicking"?

[clawstarz]

I've been having this problem for the longest time, so basically, my mouse randomly clicks at times, especially when I use my Wacom tablets. I use Windows 10 and I'm not sure if the problem is Windows itself or my Wacom tablets not being supported by Windows???
I've tried restarting my laptop many times, hoping it'll go away but sadly it didn't. I'm no tech expert.

I'm in desperate need of help to fix this issue! Anyone out there who's a pro at tech stuff, Please help me! I hope to get rid of this ghost clicking forever.

 

[clawstarz]

bump

 

[FlunseyTheFox]

Do you still need help with your "ghost clicking" issue?

 

[clawstarz]

Do you still need help with your "ghost clicking" issue?

Yes please!

 

[Pomorek]

Could you please give some more details? I might be able to help as I've dealt with several broken mice (and 2 old tablets), but I'm not sure if I understand the issue correctly. Does the mouse generate random clicks by itself, just like that? How does it show exactly on the computer, how do you notice that it happens? I mean, I usually hover my mouse cursor over the empty portions of the screen so even if my mouse was occasionally generating clicks by itself I might still never notice. Or does it make random dots when you're trying to draw with the tablet?

Besides, when you tap the stylus on the tablet surface, it should count as a click. So maybe that's what you're experiencing?

Can you try some other mouse and see if anything changes? And/or plug your mouse into some other computer or laptop and see if it keeps misbehaving?

 

[FitzLurk]

do you use a second monitor? ive had trouble with having two monitors. solved by mirroring the input. if its just a laptop *big shrug*

 

[clawstarz]

Could you please give some more details? I might be able to help as I've dealt with several broken mice (and 2 old tablets), but I'm not sure if I understand the issue correctly. Does the mouse generate random clicks by itself, just like that? How does it show exactly on the computer, how do you notice that it happens? I mean, I usually hover my mouse cursor over the empty portions of the screen so even if my mouse was occasionally generating clicks by itself I might still never notice. Or does it make random dots when you're trying to draw with the tablet?

Besides, when you tap the stylus on the tablet surface, it should count as a click. So maybe that's what you're experiencing?

Can you try some other mouse and see if anything changes? And/or plug your mouse into some other computer or laptop and see if it keeps misbehaving?

I have a wireless mouse connected. Usually it’s the problem but when I remove the USB chip out, the clicking still continues. So I’m not sure if it’s my laptop or tablet at this point? My laptop is also a touch screen too, I read somewhere that it could be the touch screen and I should turn it off but the screen wasn’t the problem either.

Also, it generates random dots when I draw as well. I tested out by hovering the mouse over my browser and it opens and closes the browser continuously. Not like a rapid fast spam click but clicks VERY often.

I also tested with an open canvas too, the cursor leaves a continuous dot as well.

 

[clawstarz]

do you use a second monitor? ive had trouble with having two monitors. solved by mirroring the input. if its just a laptop *big shrug*

No, I don’t

 

[real time strategist]

Try reinstalling wacom drivers? And if it's not that, try making sure that the pen is farther away from the tablet when you are not using it, as it could be detecting the pen pressing down randomly, but idk.

 

[Pomorek]

I have a wireless mouse connected. Usually it’s the problem but when I remove the USB chip out, the clicking still continues. So I’m not sure if it’s my laptop or tablet at this point? My laptop is also a touch screen too, I read somewhere that it could be the touch screen and I should turn it off but the screen wasn’t the problem either.

Also, it generates random dots when I draw as well. I tested out by hovering the mouse over my browser and it opens and closes the browser continuously. Not like a rapid fast spam click but clicks VERY often.

I also tested with an open canvas too, the cursor leaves a continuous dot as well.

Okay, at least we know it's not the mouse causing the problem.

Important thing: does the clicking (like opening and closing the browser) still continue when the tablet is unplugged? If it stops, then the problem is with tablet or its driver. Try uninstalling the driver, and then plug in the tablet (sure it won't have the full functionality, but that's just for the testing) and see if the clicking returns. Also, try different USB port if you have more of them. After that, reinstall the drivers and see if it helped anyhow.

If unplugging the tablet doesn't stop the clicking, then try uninstalling the driver anyway. Maybe there's some conflict. Since you say you disabled the touchscreen, this should have no influence. But if clicking still continues after unplugging & disabling all these things, then one possible culprit still remains: the laptop's touchpad!

There should be a method to disable this as well but it differs between laptops. Usually it's some keyboard combination, or some icon in the system tray, next to the clock. See if this removes the problem.

 

[clawstarz]

I apologize, I forgot to mention that it clicks at random times too! Let's say I'm just working on art, no clicking at all and suddenly it starts when I've been on my laptop/tablet all day (sometimes not even most of the day yet) or it won't happen at all until the next day or two?? So it will be a gamble to see if the problem is solved or not.

However, I'm going to take all of your advice and hope for the best! I just uninstalled the tablets driver as advised btw. I can't say if it worked yet, I can give you an update if you don't mind that? The only thing I can do is wait tbh, but thank you a lot for helping me and giving me some pointers! Your help was much better than the Microsoft customer service

 

[clawstarz]

Try reinstalling wacom drivers? And if it's not that, try making sure that the pen is farther away from the tablet when you are not using it, as it could be detecting the pen pressing down randomly, but idk.

Will do just that! All I can do is wait tbh...the ghost clicking happens at random times too instead of daily.

 

[Pomorek]

You're welcome! I just like helping people with this kind of problems - if I can.

So, the issue isn't always on... That's worse than happening all the time, at least then you have something to work with. But when it only happens sometimes, it can take quite some time indeed, to actually catch it and deal with it. Worry not, I can be inhumanely patient when needed. Also, I have dealt with quite a few such freak malfunctions on my own hardware, and on my sister's accursed laptop which develops strangest symptoms for slightest reason. So there's hope!

 

[clawstarz]

You're welcome! I just like helping people with this kind of problems - if I can.

So, the issue isn't always on... That's worse than happening all the time, at least then you have something to work with. But when it only happens sometimes, it can take quite some time indeed, to actually catch it and deal with it. Worry not, I can be inhumanely patient when needed. Also, I have dealt with quite a few such freak malfunctions on my own hardware, and on my sister's accursed laptop which develops strangest symptoms for slightest reason. So there's hope!

I can’t thank you enough! So an update, The clicking is back however it stopped when I unplugged the USD chip for my mouse. Which is progress! But sometimes, the clicking will continue even after I unplugged the USB too; this time it didn’t!

Also my laptop didn’t allow me to disable the laptops touchpad so I hope the touchpad wouldn’t be the culprit of this whole problem!

 

[Pomorek]

That's actually quite bad, I suspect the touchpad might be behind all this. And without a way to turn it off, we can't check that.

If the clicking can at all continue when the mouse gets unplugged, even sometimes, then it's most likely not the mouse itself, neither the USB chip. Do you have any special mouse control software installed by chance? Like Logitech or Razer's app for example.

How is the situation with the tablet? Did you uninstall/reinstall the drivers? How does the tablet influence the clicking, does it ever happen when the tablet is unplugged? Does unplugging it stop the clicking?

 

[clawstarz]

That's actually quite bad, I suspect the touchpad might be behind all this. And without a way to turn it off, we can't check that.

If the clicking can at all continue when the mouse gets unplugged, even sometimes, then it's most likely not the mouse itself, neither the USB chip. Do you have any special mouse control software installed by chance? Like Logitech or Razer's app for example.

How is the situation with the tablet? Did you uninstall/reinstall the drivers? How does the tablet influence the clicking, does it ever happen when the tablet is unplugged? Does unplugging it stop the clicking?

Yes actually, my mouse is Logitech! I've had it for a while now, I assume it could be that my mouse is outdated/old? And I uninstalled the tablet's driver as you instructed too. I actually got a new tablet months ago but the situation is still the same for both? But when I had my old tablet, the clicking continued when I unplugged the tablet as well so idk.

At this point, I'm suspecting that I should get a new laptop or it could be the touchpad as suspected! ;;

 

[Render]

Lot of possible causes unfortunately. I've seen driver conflicts cause simular issues, the scroll wheel on a mouse not working when the tablet was connected, etc. Could be that the touchscreen and the tablet aren't playing nice... Have you tried disabling touch input on the screen? Or possibly the touchpad/buttons on the laptop? Not impossible that they could be the problem, most laptops have a key command to disable them.

 

[clawstarz]

Lot of possible causes unfortunately. I've seen driver conflicts cause simular issues, the scroll wheel on a mouse not working when the tablet was connected, etc. Could be that the touchscreen and the tablet aren't playing nice... Have you tried disabling touch input on the screen? Or possibly the touchpad/buttons on the laptop? Not impossible that they could be the problem, most laptops have a key command to disable them.

Sadly, I've tried to disable my touchpad but the settings wouldn't allow that. I disabled my touchscreen as well. I never looked up a key command to disable the touchpad tho?

 

[Render]

Hmm. You might be able to change the buttons to fake disable it, set right click to shift or something useless. As to the command, it's usually the function key plus f8 or similar. Look for the f key with a little mouse on it.

 

[clawstarz]

Hmm. You might be able to change the buttons to fake disable it, set right click to shift or something useless. As to the command, it's usually the function key plus f8 or similar. Look for the f key with a little mouse on it.

No mouse key?

 

[Pomorek]

Try googling ”how to disable touchpad on (your laptop model)”. There should be some way.

Since the clicking continued when you unplugged mouse and tablet (and with the touchscreen disabled), at least these devices aren't to blame. It's probably either some driver conflict, or touchpad problem. Or it's Windows itself going stupid – it can happen, on my wife's laptop every bigger update breaks wifi altogether and the only working ways to get it back is to reset all network configurations, reboot, re-enter network password and reboot again.

 

[Nyro46]

On my laptop, which has Windows 10, I was able to find a setting to disable the touchpad in mouse and touchpad settings I believe? I had the same issue as well but it was caused by my arm/hand constantly touching the touchpad unintentionally.
If that isn't an option tho, you can try "hard" disabling the touchpad. I believe it is in devices. Open the "run" command and type in devmgmt.msc. If I'm correct you should be able to find the touchpad device/driver under there somewhere and shut it off. I did this when my laptop was running Windows 8.1 for a while.
Probably best though to just look up disabling the touchpad, I feel like my instructions probably aren't super clear, I turned off my touchpad a while back and haven't turned it back on since lol

 

[Pomorek]

I forgot to ask, do you actually have the Logitech mouse control app installed or not?

 

[clawstarz]

I forgot to ask, do you actually have the Logitech mouse control app installed or not?

i do!

 

[Pomorek]

There should be a way to disable or turn off the app. Try doing this when the clicking happens and see if it helps.