Keyboard and mouse stop working intermittently, randomly and frequently using Cinnamon with different operating systems

Distribution

Debian 12.8 but same problem using Cinnamon with Mint 21.3

Package version

5.6.8

Graphics hardware in use

NVIDIA AD106 [GeForce RTX 4060]

Frequency

Quite often

Bug description

My first experience of Linux was Linux Mint (several months ago and for less than a month because of the issues below) but I switched to Ubuntu a few months ago because my keyboard or mouse would stop working intermittently and randomly, I couldn’t notice a pattern of when it happened. It was happening daily. Also it was either the mouse or keyboard that stopped. More frequently the keyboard but sometimes also the mouse. I am using an Evoluent wired keyboard and Evoluent wired mouse. As troubleshooting I have tried using a different (non Evoluent) mouse but the same thing happened, I was unable to scroll or click. The issue seems different to https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/issues/3275 & https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/issues/888 as the system didn’t crash, when the keyboard stopped the mouse was working or times when both keyboard and mouse are not working the mouse is not completely non-functional (see below). Sometimes both the keyboard and mouse stop working at the same time but more often it is just the keyboard that stops – the keyboard seems more likely to stop working than the mouse.

After switching to Ubuntu the problem stopped completely, using Gnome. At the time I thought it was Linux Mint that was the issue and that Ubuntu was what fixed the problem. I had been using the same keyboard and mouse with Microsoft Windows for about 5 years with no problems. So I concluded that it was an issue with Linux Mint and probably due to Mint having an outdated kernel at that time (several months ago). Also there are various posts on the Linux Mint forum about other people having this issue with their keyboard or mouse not working (see e.g. https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=425391, https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=286484, https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=413294, https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=388667, https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=373958 – these are just some examples, there are many other Linux Mint forum posts about keyboards and mice stopping working) and it made sense at that time that it was likely a Mint issue.

However in the last week I have switched from Ubuntu to Debian with various desktop environment options including Cinnamon, GNOME, Mate etc. I was very happy to go back to Cinnamon using Debian because I love it! And expected to have no issues as I was no longer using Linux Mint. However sadly I started having the same problem again of the keyboard or mouse stopping working intermittently. Again happening multiple times a day. From memory, when it has happened, sometimes I was in the middle of using a program and sometimes I have been switching between programs. Often it has resolved itself without me doing anything – sometimes in a few minutes, but sometimes still after 30 minutes they are still not working and I need to restart my computer which resolves the issue (until it happens again in the same day!). On my Debian system I subsequently tried Gnome and Mate for hours, and had no issues (it would have happened within hours of using Cinnamon). For all these reasons I have concluded that it seems to be a Cinnamon bug, not a Linux Mint bug.

It just happened again and didn’t resolve after waiting 30 mins so I restarted the computer. This last time the keyboard went first, then the mouse and after I closed LibreOffice the mouse started working again. Before that the mouse clicker worked in the sense of allowing me to click on different windows e.g. it would let me click on the Spotify window with the mouse to open Spotify but wouldn’t let me click play or pause. The same with a browser with youtube open – it would let me click on Firefox with the mouse but it wouldn’t allow me to click on play/pause or to click on another clip. So the mouse was mostly not working but not completely non-functional.

I have tried to give detail to explain the issue but please let me know if any of this is unclear. So many people are reporting these issues on the Linux Mint forum but it appears to be a Cinnamon bug given it’s recreated with Debian. Could someone please fix this bug? I love Cinnamon! I’d love to be able to use Cinnamon again without my keyboard and mouse stopping working intermittently! Many thanks :)

Steps to reproduce

I'm sorry it just seems to happen intermittently with no warning and no pattern that I have noticed. But definitely happening multiple times a day. It seems to happen for some people but not others

Expected behavior

I would like the mouse and keyboard to work continuously like in other desktop environments please

Additional information

Debian GNU/ Linux 12 bookworm (x86/-64)

Cinnamon version 5.6.8

Linux kernel 6.1.0-28-amd64

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-Core processor x 8

Memory: 15.5GiB

Hard Drives: 13002.6GB

Graphics Card: NVIDIA AD106 [GeForce RTX 4060]

No source file, test, or entry point is identified. Start by reproducing the failure in a Cinnamon session on Debian 12 with kernel 6.1.0-28, comparing GNOME and MATE, and noting whether closing LibreOffice restores mouse behavior. Done means identifying a reproducible Cinnamon cause and verifying that the keyboard and mouse remain usable.