The mysterious case of disappearing scroll wheel functionality... RESOLVED

[Darwin]

This morning I awoke to a new reality - my scroll wheel mouse R-E-F-U-S-E-D to scroll in, as I eventually determined, any html window (ie any web browser, e-mail message formatted in html, etc.). It worked like a charm in all other applications that I tried it in. I tried three other mice, same result (Wacom Bamboo mouse, a Kennsington mobile mouse, and two Microsoft optical units, one wireless the other USB). Very consistent behaviour. I then spent hours disabling IE 8 and rebooting, re-enabling IE 8, messing endlessly with the Mouse applet in Control Panel, removing drivers for my main mouse (MS Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 v.2) and rebooting, uninstalling and re-installing MS Intellipoint 8, etc, etc, etc,...

Absolutely no f&@!#>]{ joy! The best I would get is a couple of seconds of normal operation and then all scrolling would disappear again OR the scroll wheel would either jump to the start of the page or the end.

Finally, about 30 minutes ago I installed Wizmouse and everything worked immediately. WTF?

I'm running Win 7 64-bit but live in a 32-bit browser. I did try both Firefox and Opera before determining that the problem is related to html pages.

Any thoughts? I'm happy enough with Wizmouse, but I'd rather not be running a separate process just to get scrolling in my browser!

EDIT: added "RESOLVED" to the title...

[4wd]

I get that occasionally, as well as it only scrolling in one direction no matter which way the wheel is moved.  Used to happen on my Logitech MX500, still does on my Coolermaster Storm Sentinel, (which doesn't require any external driver for it's functions).

In all times, (on Win7), if I close DeskAngel the scroll wheel will return to normal function, then I can run DeskAngel again.  So maybe I'm 'resetting' the input handler?

The one direction scroll is a known problem from XP days, (oddly enough MS 5000/6000 are the main ones I've seen during a search), and I read an explanation once of why it happens, usually the only way to fix it was to reboot.

Have you tried exiting Wizmouse and see if it returns to normal operation?

[Darwin]

Hi 4wd - thank you for the reply! I just exited Wizmouse and immediately lost all scrolling capability in IE 8 (at least, scrolling with the mouse wheel, that is). As soon as I restarted Wizmouse, scrolling returned...

BTW, Wizmouse is here.

[4wd]

If it's only particular to HTML content then maybe it is content related, eg. script, ActiveX, etc.

Have you tried the browsers in safe mode, (I believe IE8 has one)?

Resetting IE to default settings (Internet Options->Advanced->Reset)?

Disable scripting, Java, etc?

Maybe it's a sneaky way to get you to donate to WizMouse

Maybe do a system backup then try a System Restore to the previous day if a point exists?

[Curt]

What was the last change you made to your system, before the problem first occurred? When you installed WizMouse, you were reminded that Admin Rights are important (to scrolling). Maybe something has changed your privileges (Easus, WDS, Opera α, etc)?

[Darwin]

Hi all - I didn't do a good job explaining my situation  

Until yesterday morning, scrolling worked natiively (that is, WITHOUT Wizmouse) everywhere on my system. Then at some point scrolling became corrupted when viewing html content. I tried all sorts of fixes and came up short. Finally, I installed Wizmouse and functionality returned, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I now needed to run Wizmouse to enjoy functionality that comes built-in... EDIT: sorry Curt, I mis-read your post before writing the above.

However, Cranialscopical pointed me in the right direction. For the second time in the past year I find that I've hoisted myself on my own petard: it was a bloody beta (Actual Windows Manager 6.3 beta 2). The gory details are here   What's particularly embarrassing is that I didn't try running IE 8 64-bit (thought of it but never got around to doing so) and I managed to overlook entirely the fact that AWM 6.3 beta 2 introduces the ability "to scroll the contents of inactive windows without the need to activate them". Doh! This new feature is enabled by default.

BTW, I find it very odd that Wizmouse was able to override AWM, rather than leading to even more corruption!

Thank you, Chris  

EDIT: Identified the culprit so that others might avoid my pain/embarrassment!

[Darwin]

BTW, just an update, Actual  Tools have already released a hotfix to address this issue. Unfortunately, their website just went down so I haven't been able to download and try it out 

[Curt]

-I take it that their 'hot-fix' helped, then.

Are you using a wide screen monitor, Darwin? I ask because I have (a 4:3 monitor, and) a license for AWM, but I have not found any reason to install the program. Knowing that you have gone the minimalistic way, so you won't use AWM just for the fun of it, I suddenly realized that just maybe AWM really can be useful to me, as well! HOW do you use it?

Edited: their site is okay again. What on earth do I answer to their question: "*What do you download Actual Window Manager for?*"???!!!

[Darwin]

Nevermind... the website is backup and I've installed the hotfix. Everything seems to work, with the exception of mouse wheel scrolling within the AWM options screens  

[Darwin]

Hi Curt - sorry, our posts crossed each other in cyberspace!
 
I use AWM mostly for its ability to display discrete taskbars on my secondary monitor(s). This is SERIOUSLY underutilizing the software, but I have found it to be light on resources and non-intrusive. Before yesterday, I really had never had any trouble with it, bar a few beta releases that were resource hogs. I also have a license for UltraMon, which is a smaller and simpler app. I installed it, surreptitiously, on my wife's notebook so that I can run dual monitors when I have to troubleshoot it! Both work very well...