Looking for someone with Wacom Intuos using 10.4.9 on PPC

Question

Looking for someone with Wacom Intuos using 10.4.9 on PPC

I am looking for someone who has a Wacom Intuos2 or Intuos3 Tablet and is running OS 10.4.9 on a PPC. I am getting real irratic behavior on both my G4 Powerbook and my Dual 2-Gig G5 with both the Intuos2 and 3 tablets when I use the mouse? (Pens work fine).

What I have noticed is that most of the time when say dragging a cursor marquee in the Finder, the LEDs will flash on the tablet and the cursor will start drawing new marquees with the mouse button continually held down? When I run diagnostics in the Wacom Driver it sporatically shows the Switch alternating between 1 and All Open - when it should stay fixed on 1 when the mouse button is down. If I try to drag windows between monitors is just drops them, and it sometimes won't select a folder with a click and sometimes it double-clicks a folder when only one click was initiated? Both my computers are doing this consistently with both tablets WHETHER THE WACOM DRIVER IS INSTALLED OR NOT!!! Therefore, it appears to be a hardware or USB incompatibility with the Intuos Tablets and 10.4.9 when using the Wacom mouse. (Once again the Wacom pens all work fine 100% of the time).

JUST LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO CONFIRM THIS BEHAVIOR. For the past three weeks I just thought maybe I was getting sloppy with my mouse clicks or something, but now I am convinced that I have a universal issue, just need someone else to confirm I am not imagining this!

I have spent over 14 hours the past two days trying EVERYTHING to fix this on my G5 Tower- then I finally decided to try the tablets on my Powerbook G4 (where I had never previously attached a tablet) and immediately got the exact same behavior - so it appears to be a major incompatibility!

To test this on your end probably the easiest thing to do is start dragging out empty marquees repeatedly and slowly in the finder and see if they skip and start redrawing from the new cursor position occasionally. You can also watch the LEDs on your tablet and see if they ever change color while dragging and the mouse button is continually held down.

Thanks for any assistance!

G5-Dual-2Gig, Mac OS X (10.4.6), 4.5 Gig Ram

Posted on May 13, 2007 1:43 AM

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Answer 1

May 13, 2007 2:01 AM in response to ChoreoGraphics

I've got the Intuos 3 on a Quicksilver, and the only oddity I've had with the mouse involves the scroll wheel being a bit nutty fairly often. Also have two monitors, haven't had any problems at all dragging between monitor or in selecting items. I have Tablet Driver Version 4.9.6.-3, and have the mouse set to Pen mode, with absolute mapping of the two monitors to a small portion of the tablet. Drives other people nuts when they discover my mouse doesn't behave remotely like any mouse they ever used... Drives me nuts to have to use a "normal" mouse.
Francine

Francine
Schwieder

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Answer 2

May 13, 2007 4:07 AM in response to Francine Schwieder

That is interesting. As best as I can tell my issues started right after the upgrade to 10.4.9. At first I just noticed that sometimes when dragging windows between monitors they disengage from the mouse movement and I had to go back and complete the drag. Then it got worse. I have 3 - 24" monitors connected and I too always use Pen Mode with the mouse, but set to Portion of Tablet. Then yesterday I upgraded to the latest Wacom Driver and it did not help. Wacom Tech support decided I had a bad switch in my mouse Friday which sounded reasonable. Late Friday, Wacom tech support suggested that I just hook up my Intuos2 and use it with the Intuos2 mouse until I could get a new replacement Intuos3 mouse delivered as I still had a retired Intuos2 I was not using and they said it would work with the same Wacom OSX Driver. Sounded like a bullet-proof fix until I plugged in the Intuos2 and it started the exact same behavior - only worse! I tried un-installing the new Wacom driver and going back - no change. Then I rebooted to a new OSX account with no Wacom Driver loaded at all yet and the Wacom mouse started losing it's mind even when just used as a standard mouse in mouse mode - WITH NO DRIVER! (Pen worked fine just like on my Intuos3).

Finally as a way-out test, I hooked my Intuos2 to my Powerbook G4 running 10.4.9 and the exact same thing started immediately (both with and without the driver installed) - so something isn't right.

Keep in mind that the behavior I am describing is sometimes elusive - it will work sometimes up to maybe 20 drags before stalling and then other times it is constant. What is really strange is that all the Pens work on both tablets on both computers under all conditions, but the mice have trouble in EVERY configuration I have. (Note standard Apple mouse when connected also works fine).

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Answer 3

Mo-kat

Level 1

0 points

May 13, 2007 7:25 AM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Hi,

I have an Intuos3 Tablet, with latest driver, and am on a Powerbook G4 17" running 10.4.9. No problems with using my mouse.

Your tablet must be plugged directly into the Mac usb port, not a hub (or daisy chained).

NB Also on the Wacom site they will advise how to uninstall previous Wacom driver software, run permissions, and then clean re-install. They advised this with one of the previous recent drivers - check their site for details and you might find this is the problem. Sounds very much like it to me.

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Answer 4

May 13, 2007 2:45 PM in response to Mo-kat

I have to say this is the hardest thing to diagnose that I have come up against over the past 10 years! Completely out of ideas.

If this was just the Intuos3 with the mouse on my G5 then I would just say it is a bad mouse switch, but when a different mouse on two different tablets (Intuos 2 and Intuos3) are both exhibiting the same behavior on two different computers (a G4 Laptop and a G5 Tower) - then something is wrong.

The only other thing I have done to both computers recently is I installed Adobe CS3. Have any of you that have responded also installed CS3?

This is not a Wacom Driver issue, because if you plug in a tablet without the Wacom Driver installed, the mouse should still work like a standard mouse and I am having trouble even then. Even during a restart of the computer as soon as the Wacom tablet blue light comes on - even before the desktop appears, if I hold down the mouse button the tablet will irratically flicker between blue (receiving power from USB) to green (mouse button engaged)? (Again it does not do this with the Pen - it always works fine - just any Wacom mouse).

If it were a USB power issue the tablet light would go off and on, but it doesn't - one of the LEDs is always lit. If it were a tablet grid issue, the Pen would also display the same symptoms - it doesn't. It acts like the mouse does not have enough "consistent power" output to keep the grid engaged when activated which would be easily explained by a bad mouse switch or for sure if the mouse had a bad battery, but I don't think the mouse has a battery does it? And none of this explains why I am getting this on two tablets with two mice (unless the mouse actually does have a battery and both are bad)?

Anyway I am 95% sure this is a communication problem between the mouse and the tablet - not the tablet and the computer and Driver is not in the equation.

Really stumped.

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Answer 5

May 13, 2007 3:23 PM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Well, I think I may have isolated the problem. Since I decided the problem was between the mouse and the tablet, I got to thinking what is "physically" between the mouse and the tablet that could cause interference? Then I remembered a few weeks ago I ordered some new replacement felt pads from Wacom because mine was worn after a couple years of mousing - so I replaced it. Everything seemed to work fine after I installed the new replacement, but apparently that is the culprit! I just removed that new felt pad from the bottom of the mouse and now everything works perfect!!! I also had replaced the felt pad on my Intuos2 just before I retired it. So it "appears" that it is the replacement pads that Wacom is selling that are source of the problem! I have not had a single fault in the past 45 minutes of running the mouse without any pad at all - so that must be it!

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Answer 6

May 13, 2007 4:32 PM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Ok. I am an idiot. Here is what I finally discovered and this is a copy of the email I sent to Wacom Tech Support...

There was nothing wrong with the replacement felt mouse pads as I first assumed. After looking at some extra felt mouse pads I had ordered, I noticed that the felt itself is affixed to a firm piece of clear plastic (so there is actually two layers of adhesive on the replacement pads as well as two layers of material). When I peeled off the original mouse felt to replace this pad about a month ago, it left the original piece of clear plastic behind on the mouse and I thought that it was the actual bottom of the mouse itself! Therefore when I applied the new felt pad it "added" another layer of this firm clear plastic backing on top of the original one that should have been removed by me prior to installation. So for the past month I have been trying to communicate through a double-layer of clear plastic instead of a single layer!!

Since I had about 20 hours of lost time on this issue this weekend, it might be nice to add this to the FAQs and maybe even printed instruction sheet in the replacements instructing people to "MAKE SURE TO REMOVE CLEAR PLASTIC BACKING FROM MOUSE WHICH IS PART OF THE OLD FELT PAD UNIT PRIOR TO INSTALLING NEW FELT PAD WHICH HAS THIS SAME PLASTIC BACKING MATERIAL ALREADY INCORPORATED INTO ITS DESIGN".

Both times I removed the felt pad from my mouse (original and replacement) it left the clear plastic backing attached to the mouse in such a manner to where one would think it is just the bottom surface of the mouse itself.

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Answer 7

May 13, 2007 8:40 PM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Hi,I am running OS 10.4.9 on my Powebook G4.... I am having isues with only my pen tool. The mouse seems to be running fine. But the pen has a serious delay with strokes in Photoshop and Painter. bugging the heck out of me!!!
I have tried alotting memory to PS and didn't help.

I stupidly alowed a tech guy (term loosely) at work to partition my computer when new.... is this the reason. I only have 4 G on main drive (where PS and Painter are installed) and 15G on the other. Even when I save the work to my External drive (45G avaliable) I still have the delay.

Any ideas?

Any help would be great!! It is sooooo slowing down my work!

(I just upgraded from graphire--- which I uninstalled--- to the intuos 3 because of this delay and now it is happening here!!!! Ahhhhhhhh)

Thanks K

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

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Answer 8

Mo-kat

Level 1

0 points

May 13, 2007 10:07 PM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Hi - well done on identifying the plastic issue. I'm really pleased to know about this as my Wacom is new, and when I need to replace felt I would have done the same as you. Isn't it amazing that such small things can cause dozens of hours of downtime. It happens to me often, and this is one you've potentially saved me. I also wondered why my Wacom mat was 'loose' and curled up under air-conditioning - thought it may have been a factory fault only to find out later that it was for replacement purposes. I wish the suppliers would put some simple FASQ (frequently asked silly questions) onto their sites!

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Answer 9

Mo-kat

Level 1

0 points

May 13, 2007 10:11 PM in response to Krista Heij

Hi on the pen issue, I don't know, but there was a documented delay issue with Photoshop and the tablet which was fixed either by the Wacom or Photoshop driver / updates. I can't remember which site it was on, but I'd go to both these sites, and upgrade. You'll read about it there. I did have that for a short while myself but no longer.

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Answer 10

May 13, 2007 11:33 PM in response to Krista Heij

Krista,

Since you are experiencing delays in both Photoshop and Painter, it is most likely a tablet Driver issue. Make sure you have the latest Wacom driver installed:

http://www.wacom.com/productsupport/drivers.cfm?os=OSX&product=PTZ

Regarding "partitioning" - that is sometimes a good thing to do on large drives (I do it on all my 250-gig+ internal drives on my tower), but sounds like you only have a 20-gig internal installed on your Powerbook so it probably is not helping or hurting you "performance-wise" in relation to your pen actions. Make sure in your Photoshop preferences that your "Scratch" disk is set to your larger partition (or better yet a dedicated external firewire drive if available). If you want to increase your performance in Photoshop, first and foremost add more RAM, and allocate at least 70% of it to Photoshop (in Photoshop prefs) and add a dedicated external firewire scratch disk if possible (but not as important as lots of RAM). Right now, even though your drive is partitioned, it will not help you speed-wise since the same head has to move across the platters to read/write. As long as you have enough RAM you will not need to worry about your hard drive(s) and if your files are really large - consider a tower with more horsepower and expandibility.

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Answer 11

May 14, 2007 12:05 AM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Thanks for posting the solution. I just noticed the other day that the pad on the bottom of my mouse was getting pretty worn and was wondering about a replacement, so I could have been getting the same mysterious errors in the not too distant future. It's the little things like this that drive one nuts!
Francine

Francine
Schwieder

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Answer 12

May 14, 2007 12:44 AM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Been working now for several hours - so that was it!

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Answer 13

May 14, 2007 6:29 PM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Awesome! I jsut assumed that since it was a brand new tablet, the software was new. I DL the newest and the PS was corrected but not fully in paiter.

I just DL the newest one, should I have uninstalled and then cleaned permissions and then reinstalled?

Just a thought?

But thanks!!!!

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.3)

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Answer 14

May 14, 2007 6:57 PM in response to Krista Heij

Krista,

Not sure exactly what you are saying here. If I understand correctly, you downloaded the latest Wacom Driver and installed that and now you are up to speed inside Photoshop - right? But the speed problem still exists inside Painter - right?

Also what versions of Painter and Photoshop do you have installed?

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Answer 15

May 14, 2007 8:20 PM in response to ChoreoGraphics

Sorry for the confusion. I am not mentally challanged... well kind of.. I have a 7 month old. My time online seems to be found in small spirts between wakings and crys! 🙂

Yes, you translated correctly. I have PS 7 and Painter 8. The PS seems to be upto speed (that I can tell) but painter still has a lag time in strokes with heavier brushes. Almost like it is processing or thinking.

I do most of my work in PS just import it over for the odd texture. So it doesn't slow me down too much. But I just hate it because it shouldn't do that!!!

What I meant was..
I had read that it is a good idea before you install something to run permissions, Disk Utility, then install, then run them again. Thoughts?

But mainly... should I have "uninstalled" the software that came with the intuos 3 (6.00) and then install the downloaded driver, 6.03?

I haven't yet because... well, I am just to tired to.

Thanks again!

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

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