Mouse cursor problem - series of small, black dots under my cursor that follows me wherever I go

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Level 1

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Mouse cursor problem - series of small, black dots under my cursor that follows me wherever I go

I'm not sure what happened, but starting yesterday, a small line of black dots appeared under my mouse cursor and follows my pointer wherever it goes on the screen. Has anyone else experienced this problem and found a fix?

I have rebooted my computer many times, reset the PRAM/NVRAM, repaired disk permissions, checked the mouse and display settings, and booted into safe mode and restarted. None of these have solved the problem. I have also changed my mouse from a bluetooth to a wired mouse and that didn't do anything either, so I don't think it's a problem with the mouse itself. I'm out of ideas.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Apr 18, 2019 9:01 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

207,757 points

Apr 21, 2019 11:00 AM in response to brice02

Can you capture the dots under the cursor in a screenshot?

How to take a screenshot on your Mac - Apple Support

Capture a selected portion of the screen

Press Shift-Command-4.

Drag to select the area of the screen to capture. To move the entire selection, press and hold Space bar while dragging.

After you release your mouse or trackpad button, find the screenshot as a .png file on your desktop.

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Answer 2

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,880 points

Apr 18, 2019 10:29 PM in response to brice02

Please post an EtreCheck report of your system and we can look for any obvious issues. Please click the link, watch the slideshow to learn how to use the tool and download and run the free version of the app and then post the complete report it produces as your reply to this message.

When you have run the report and are ready to reply to this message please attach the report. You will see a screen shot below that indicates where to click in your reply message.

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

207,757 points

Apr 22, 2019 9:18 AM in response to brice02

Log into another user account on your Mac and see if the problem persists. If it does then you can be confident that it's hardware related. If it doesn't then it's limited to your account and is related to what you have installed.

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Answer 4

brice02 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 21, 2019 12:27 AM in response to rkaufmann87

EtreCheck report

Here is the EtreCheck report and my iMac specs. The iMac is quite old so I was expecting hardware failures, but I ran the Apple Diagnostics test and it didn't return any issues.

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Answer 5

kaz-k

Level 8

49,194 points

Apr 19, 2019 5:40 AM in response to brice02

Hi,

I think it's a hardware related issue. Try to run Apple Diagnostics if it reports hardware issues.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731

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Answer 6

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,990 points

Apr 19, 2019 6:35 AM in response to brice02

What is the Sub-model of your iMac? Some had known issues. Do "About this Mac" to find the sub-model. See the image below. Also please post the screen size (20", 21.5",24",27").

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Answer 7

brice02 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 21, 2019 12:20 AM in response to kaz-k

I ran an extended check of Apple Diagnostics and it didn't find any issues. This was actually kind of surprising since I was expecting a hardware-related issue as well.

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Answer 8

brice02 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 21, 2019 12:27 AM in response to kaz-k

.

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Answer 9

brice02 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 21, 2019 8:30 PM in response to Old Toad

I attached a picture in my initial post, which was taken with my phone camera. Unfortunately, the cursor doesn't show up on the screenshot when I use Shift+Command+4 or Shift+Command+3.

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Mouse cursor problem - series of small, black dots under my cursor that follows me wherever I go

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