Oh man I almost freaked out

[rocketman]

Yesterday when I received my T42 I was all chuffed that there were no stuck or bad pixels on my display. Well this morning I went to a site that has a black background and there is a stuck white pixel staring me in the face practically right in the middle of the display. I checked on a few other sites with dark backgrounds and it was stiil there. Then I remembered that I once read that someone had what he thought was a stuck pixel but pushing the middle mouse button made the stuck pixel disappear.
So I pushed the midldle button and it disappeared like magic. It's a good thing I remembered reading about that, I never would have thought to have done that and would have had to call IBM to exchange the machine.
Can anyone tell me why that happens anyway?

[AtmosMan]

That same thing happened to me too. I was so upset I thought I had a dead pixel. I think it is caused by some UltraNav bug. Have to wait for IBM to release a better version.

[Kenn]

Yesterday when I received my T42 I was all chuffed that there were no stuck or bad pixels on my display. Well this morning I went to a site that has a black background and there is a stuck white pixel staring me in the face practically right in the middle of the display. I checked on a few other sites with dark backgrounds and it was stiil there. Then I remembered that I once read that someone had what he thought was a stuck pixel but pushing the middle mouse button made the stuck pixel disappear.
So I pushed the midldle button and it disappeared like magic. It's a good thing I remembered reading about that, I never would have thought to have done that and would have had to call IBM to exchange the machine.
Can anyone tell me why that happens anyway?

Looks like it's just a ridiculous bug with the ultranav driver. Personally, I think it has something to do with the the edge-motion scrolling feature, which is somewhat flaky in its operation (your mouse cursor needs to be on the window you want to scroll, regardless of whether that window is active or not).

In fact, I can induce the pixel at will. Enable edge motion coasting. Coast an edge-motion scroll in a Firefox window, and the cursor will change to the scroll cursor (and stay that way until you move it). Minimize all your windows, and the dot will appear when you restore the window. Family fun for all.

[Plinkerton]

Kenn, that's really interesting. If you can replicate it, maybe that means it would be easier for them to fix, since they would be able to find out what the problem is.

I haven't tried your trick on mine, but I do get that white dot every once in a while. Hit the middle button, and it's gone.

[Kenn]

Kenn, that's really interesting. If you can replicate it, maybe that means it would be easier for them to fix, since they would be able to find out what the problem is.

I haven't tried your trick on mine, but I do get that white dot every once in a while. Hit the middle button, and it's gone.

Hi Plinkerton,

Yeah, but I figure it's happening to SO MANY people that it simply can't be something they're not aware of. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened to everyone, but only a small fraction of users notice or care.

I just tested again, and it's not exactly replicating the issue. The firefox scrolling pixel is a "dynamic" hot-pixel - it changes color and might actually disappear while on the desktop, and goes away when you scroll with edge motion as well as when you hit the middle button. The pure white pixel only seems to be nukable with the middle mouse button. Both pixels change into the scroll cursor when you mouse over them.

[Elhabash]

And I thought that you are a magician at first, Kenn, commander of the White Ghost!

your mouse cursor needs to be on the window you want to scroll, regardless of whether that window is active or not

Actually I regard a similar case as a feature: When you can scroll a passive window without activating it when the cursor is on it.