Hey, Leo. Thanks for your website; itâs great! My question is this: when I
drag my cursor too fast to copy something, the page crashes. How can I prevent
this?
In this excerpt from
Answercast #74, I look at a case where mouse movement is causing a crash.
The first step in diagnosis is to clearly explain the problem!
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Fast mouse movement causes crash
We need to start with a little bit of clarification of terminology. Itâs
important to realize that âpagesâ donât crash. Browsers crash, programs crash,
and computers crash â but âpagesâ donât crash.
âPagesâ are being displayed by something.
Now, since youâre using the term âpages,â Iâm going to assume you mean
something like a âweb page.â Perhaps youâre looking at it in your web browser â
and that, in fact, itâs the web browser that is going away.
The same concept can apply for other programs as well. You could be looking
at a page I suppose in a PDF reader or in a Word document. In which case, any
of those fall into this category of a âprogramâ crashing.
So itâs not the page that crashed, itâs the program.
Getting tech help
I hate to be a stickler on terminology â but one of the reasons that itâs
very important to use the correct terminology when referring to whatâs
happening with your computer is that it gives people like me a much better
chance of correctly or at least more closely, answering the real question â
answering the real problem that youâre presenting.
Like I said, pages donât crash; programs and computers do (and sometimes a
little too often!)
The program that youâre running? I donât know what it is. It could be a
browser; it could be a word processor; it could be a PDF reader; it could be
any number of things.
Program crashes
If itâs the program that goes away, then the first thing that I
would do is I would actually make sure you are running the most recent version
of that program.
Very often, there can be bugs in the software that manifest like this. This
bug sounds kind of serious (Iâm kind of surprised it made it out), but that
kind of bug is often fixed in revisions of the software: revisions that have
come out, perhaps, after youâve purchased, or acquired, your copy.
Browser fixes
Similarly, if youâre looking at a browser, specifically, one of the
first things I would do is go in and turn off the add-ons in that browser.
Those add-ons could be what has the bug. They are things you can turn off! If
turning off the add-ons makes this problem go away, then you can start
re-enabling them one at a time to see which one it is that (once you re-enable
it) causes that problem to come back.
So thatâs the first, program-level, way of looking at this.
Computer crashing
If in fact itâs your computer that ends up crashing (or rebooting or going
down), the very first thing I would try actually is your display driver.
The mouse and the display driver have a very interesting and low-level
interaction with each other. It is very possible that issues with either
(though typically itâs the video driver) can cause odd behavior like this â
behavior that causes the computer to crash.
In fact, it is conceivable, given the various protection models that are in
place (for whatever version of Windows youâre running) that the video driver
could cause the application (again, whatever application that is) to
crash.
Itâs worth looking at your video driver. Make sure that the drivers for your
video card are as up-to-date as possible.
Those are two directions I would send you off in:
-
Make sure youâre running the latest version of whatever program it is thatâs
crashing; -
And make sure youâre running the latest drivers for your video card (if
getting the latest version of the program thatâs crashing doesnât solve your
problem.)
(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)
Next from Answercast 74 â How can I
remove the shortcut arrow from a desktop icon?
Thanks for another great article, Leo.
I have a similar type of issue since I started using a new computer, now Windows 7 instead of XP.
When I open a new browser page, it does not open on top, and I have to click on the icon in the taskbar to bring up the new page. I use âctrl and Nâ as I no longer have an icon in the far left of the taskbar like I did with XP to use to open a new browser page.
Also, just moving the mouse across the page highlights everything blue.
Is there an easy fix? I have tried adjusting the mouse sensitivity.
wish i had an answer but same type problem is all i have â any program or game, seems like the cursor hasnt enough âpowerâ to make a real full clik..wont drag, items or overfills items (too much) IDK, new win7 ult installation tooâŠ
Ha, ha! When you said, âthe mouse and the display driver have a very interesting and low-level interaction with each other,â I thought back to the old days: Perhaps the IRQ of the serial port is conflicting with the video card. These days, I donât think it would be that, but it did bring back memories of trying to troubleshoot IRQ conflicts given that there were only 15 IRQ slots and a full computer would use most of them.
If that really does turn that this is the problem, I would suggest a newer computer. Ha, ha.