Over the past two months (before the 10.3.8 update) I've been having trouble with my mouse pointer disappearing. It happens after I've had an external display hooked up. If I put the computer to sleep while the external display is connected (or just after disconnecting it), I frequently (but not always) don't have a cursor when I wake it back up. The keyboard still functions, and the mouse still works--I just can't see where it's pointing. So, if I move it up and left, eventually I can click on menus, but I have to guess where the cursor really is.
Can't track anything down online, so I thought I'd ask here--anybody seen this happen? Better yet, anybody know a fix? (And yes, Jeremy, I'll call it into the help desk, too... :)
Happened to me once. I was running an OS 9 app and connected to an extenal display. The cursor turned invisible when the ext display was unplugged. This happened only once out of a dozen times I've done this. Good luck.
Just found a reference to this problem on the macosxhints forum--but no solution, alas. At least I know I'm not alone.
There is a discussion about this problem on the MacNetJournal website. Look at the Feb 14 entry. There are a number of comments, but no clear solution. The site is at http://www.whiterabbits.com/MacNetJournal/
Same thing happens to me on an almost daily basis. The only fix I've found is to wake the thing up just before leaving, make sure the mouse pointer is on the laptop screen, then disconnect everything and put it back to sleep after it's done flickering and flashing.
Hoping this is something fixed in Tiger, like they fixed my previous major problem where if any network drives were connected before sleep, the thing would freeze up when waking on a new network.
I've had this happen to me too. Usually putting it (my 12" powerbook) to sleep and waking it back up makes it all happy again. I always open the lid when hooking it up to the monitor and make sure it wakes up before I yank out the monitor adapter (or else it doesn't always wake up properly the next time).
I don't know if I've had any problems since the 10.3.8 update, but I've pretty much made it a habit now...
My cursor disappears everytime I type anything, either in a Word document or in an email. It seems to happen on nearly every line. Sometimes it disappears if I am just sitting with my hands in my lap thinking of what to say next or if I even leave the room for a minute. I always keep my pointer on the "Status bar" or whatever in the heck that bottom margin is called and the cursor reappears right where it is supposed to be when I right click with my mouse.
Yep. Happening to me too. I'll try l.m.'s special disconnecting-from-the-monitor dance and see if that helps.
Kind of nice to Google for an answer to a problem and get directed to my friend Liz. :)
A temporary solution: use the Accessibility feature of "zooming in" on your screen. That makes the pointer appear... although when you zoom out, it disappears again.
Same thing happens when I hook up my 12" powerbook to an external display, mouse, and keyboard at home. Has anyone discovered a solution?
Thanks :)
happens to me too. for me, it happens after disconnecting the external monitor. my solution was just restarting the computer.
I have been having a disappearing cursor problem for some time. I didn't have the problem before Windows XP SP2. Whenever, I am typing in an email or Word the cursor disappears and I get a "bong" sound whenever I touch a key. I use the mouse get the cursor back on the screen and when I left click the mouse the cursor returns to where is left. This happens about every 2 minutes. If I stop typing for a while the cursor will still disappear after about 2 minutes. I have yet to find anybody that has a solution other than to remove everything from the hard drive and starte installing programs one at a time and checking to see which one causes the problem. I am not ready to try that time consuming process yet.
I ahve had the same problem, again no solution, happens after discnecting external monitor..
When the pointer disappars it is fuinctionally still "there" as when I move around the screen I can get to the menu and dioock items and sirt of guess where the pointer is..
..a useful workaround if you do not have time to reboot is a program called "Mousepose" from http://www.boinx.com/ it is intended for lpresentations and creates a spotlight circle around the mouse pointer, this can be set to a very small size and this still works when the pointer disppears..
I don't have a cure either, but I do have very predictable behavior. If I unplug the 2nd monitor from my Powerbook (10.3.9), the mouse pointer goes invisible However, *if* the pointer was on the 2nd screen when I unplug it, *then* when I move the mouse, it reappears at the edge of my main screen.
If I forget and let it go invisible, the only way to bring it back that I've found short of rebooting (Detect Displays won't bring it back, nor will logging out and in), is to plug a 2nd monitor back in, and move the pointer onto that screen. As soon as it moves onto the 2nd screen, it reappears.
I have some old VGA-to-Apple monitor adaptors. I keep on in my bag along with my laptop's DVI-to-VGA adaptor cable, so that if I let my pointer disappear, I can "plug a monitor" into it long enough to get it back. The Mac isn't fooled by just plugging the cable in, but if the adaptor's plugged into the cable, the Mac thinks that there's a real monitor there.
I am using Tiger on a brand new PB 15", and the cursor disappears here, too.
i want to know how to disappear the cursor that always "on-off-on-off" all the time when i reboot or shutdown my computer (os = linux).what directory that i must modify for the cursor will disappear.
thanx
lovefanix
I see a lot of people with the same problem, but
no one seems to know how to fix it.
This has been happening to me too. If I simply unplug the mouse and use the trackpad, the cursor reappears. When I plug the mouse back in in picks up where the trackpad left off.
What happens in my case is that the pointer has jumped off of the side of the screen. I had to disable the hot corners, otherwise they'd keep getting activated as I tried to move the pointer back onto the screen using the mouse.
I was experiencing a problem whereby my cursor appeared to freeze, or stop moving. However I could still move the mouse and click on things (etc) with an invisible cursor.
This occured sometimes after an interval of about 15 mins after using the computer. At other times after I left the computer idle for 5 mins before returning to it, I would discover the problem had arisen.
(so basically a similar situation to the others who have posted here.)
The solution which I tried was to download the latest update for my mouse driver.
I think this has solved the problem for me, although I cant tell for certain (but I serious doubt it solved itself!)
Mouse drivers for Windows users are usually the mouse drivers found on the Microsoft website. I'm unsure about Apple Mac users, but with a bit of research I expect you can find out.
Microsoft Windows:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=85d871bb-eebc-4e34-b87d-41e1a493965b&DisplayLang=en
"IntelliPoint mouse software version 5.0 for Windows XP and 2000 operating system, which must be installed to provide full functionality for certain Microsoft mouse models."
If this doesnt help, I suggest updating your graphics driver too. Also make sure you mouse is properally connected - the wire may have come loose.
Also, I read somewhere that increasing your virtual memory might help.
All this failing, temporary solutions are:
For Windows users, turn on Pointer Trails. If you set the pointer trails to the lowest setting you can hardly tell there is a trail. This works because your invisible cursor will now leave a a trail of where it was previously. Except the trail is very very close to where it presently is - so you can see what you're doing even when the actual cursor is invisible.
This is found through Control Panel > Mouse > Pointer Options.
For Apple Mac users, I think downloading Mousepose (with an e acute-accent at the end) from Boinx is probably the next best solution. Its free. You can set it so that the cursor highlighter is very small and very bright, and so that the sceen dimming effect is minimal or nil.
This is found at http://www.boinx.com/mousepose/
Oh sorry, I forgot to mention that I use Windows XP.
Hope my above post solves your problem!
A solution to this problem.....
This article applies to the following OSes:
Windows XP, Service Pack 2
Windows XP
Erratic cursor movement encompasses a wide variety of behavior. While it is not possible to include all of the possible varieties of erratic movement, common symptoms include any or all of the following:
Jumping to the top of the screen
Rough tracking or not tracking at all
Pointer doesn't move or stops moving after a short time
To work around this problem, turn off the Enhance pointer precision feature: 1. Click Start, click Run, type control mouse, and then click OK.
2. Click the Pointer Options tab, click to clear the Enhance pointer precision check box, and then click OK.