diff --git a/lib/logitech/unifying_receiver/listener.py b/lib/logitech/unifying_receiver/listener.py
index 7f373c58..5ccc489f 100644
--- a/lib/logitech/unifying_receiver/listener.py
+++ b/lib/logitech/unifying_receiver/listener.py
@@ -102,11 +102,13 @@ class _ThreadedHandle(object):
 # Ideally this should be rather long (10s ?), but the read is blocking
 # and this means that when the thread is signalled to stop, it would take
 # a while for it to acknowledge it.
-_EVENT_READ_TIMEOUT = 0.5
+# Forcibly closing the file handle on another thread does _not_ interrupt the
+# read on Linux systems.
+_EVENT_READ_TIMEOUT = 0.4  # in seconds
 
 # After this many reads that did not produce a packet, call the tick() method.
 # This only happens if tick_period is enabled (>0) for the Listener instance.
-_IDLE_READS = (5 / 0.5)  # wait at least 5 seconds between ticks
+_IDLE_READS = 1 + int(5 // _EVENT_READ_TIMEOUT)  # wait at least 5 seconds between ticks
 
 
 class EventsListener(_threading.Thread):
diff --git a/lib/solaar/listener.py b/lib/solaar/listener.py
index 7a4c4b8f..28b20aab 100644
--- a/lib/solaar/listener.py
+++ b/lib/solaar/listener.py
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ class ReceiverListener(_listener.EventsListener):
 	def __init__(self, receiver, status_changed_callback):
 		super(ReceiverListener, self).__init__(receiver, self._notifications_handler)
 		# no reason to enable polling yet
-		self.tick_period = _POLL_TICK
+		# self.tick_period = _POLL_TICK
 		self._last_tick = 0
 
 		assert status_changed_callback