Solved: Wireless mouse stops working

Scenario: Every time my computer did a backup to an external hard drive, my wireless mouse would stop working. I could click it and move it but there was no response on the screen. Changing the batteries didn’t help. The (wired) keyboard worked fine. The external hard drive was plugged into a USB port on the front of the computer, as was the dongle for the wireless mouse.

Solution: After Googling for solutions, I decided to try to the simplest first—move the wireless dongle for the mouse from the USB port on the front of the computer to a USB hub some distance from the computer (this hub is plugged into a USB port on the back of the computer). Once I did that, I reran a backup to test that the mouse would not be affected. It wasn’t, so problem solved! It seems that conflicts between devices—especially those plugged into the front USB ports—are common.