every so often, i get weird cursor focus problems

[Paul S]

Robert P. J. Day said the following on 09/17/2010 01:48 PM:
>
>    occasionally, i've run into the problem where my entire desktop
> enters some strange state where i can't activate a window by simply
> clicking on it, i can't switch virtual desktops, and a bunch of other
> oddities that seem related to mouse focus of some kind.  in fact, it's
> happening right now.  any suggestions?
>
>    ubuntu pre-maverick.

I've had something similar happen on lucid.  What I concluded is that it 
was a popup window (in my case shutdown selector) that demanded focus 
but had opened below other windows.  So, I could not  see it and there 
was no flashing in the taskbar like  you see on some windows needing 
focus.  Next time try checking each window to see if it's stealing focus 
somehow.