MacBook Pro M1 mouse cursor disappears

Same thing just happened to me, using trackpad. MBP 13" M1 Big Sur 11.2.2.

Cursor not moving but able to swipe between desktops.

It started working again after restart from recovery mode, although I didn't actually do anything whilst in recovery mode.

MacBook Pro M1 16GB 500GB BigSur 11.2.3

I have had the same issue as reported by many others i.e. On several occasions the trackpad cursor has stayed frozen in one place on the screen at startup.

This has occurred several times in January and also today (Mar 16, 2021 3.30pm). On such occasions I force the m1 to shut down by holding down the power/fingerprint button. There is a significant delay before the mi will restart and then the cursor usually functions normally.

Since my previous post on the issue I've been experimenting to try & find what triggers it. I now close everything before turning off & only have finder launch at start-up. After signing in, I then make a point of not touching anything until my Macbook Pro M1 has fully launched & stabilised. Because I've stopped everything else launching then that's when finder & all the various symbols fully appear along the top of the screen (I've only done that to speed up launching/stabilisation & it's probably not needed so long as you're prepared to wait a little longer).

So long as I do that, my cursor always functions correctly. However, even momentarily touching/brushing the trackpad before that point can be enough to trigger the problem (& usually is).

Bit of a pain having to be so ultra careful at launch, but still far better than having to hold down the power button to shutdown & start again. I never had any such issue on my previous MacBook Pro (late 2013), not even once. I'd just sign in & pretty much get going straight away, but this one is currently extremely finicky.

It's not great, but at least it works, or has so far in my own case & with a 100% success rate.

One point I'd make, is that usually at launch everything displays across the top within a couple of seconds or so. Every once in a while though, it can take a few more seconds before everything on the top left appears. In my case & because I've nothing else set to launch at start that's:- the apple symbol, finder, edit, view, go, window, help.

It's on those occasions & when that extra small delay occurs that I've previously been caught out. If I touch the trackpad & everything top left isn't yet fully displayed, then it's an odds on bet that my cursor will freeze or disappear. ;-)

Hi,

I have the same problem. I found the simples workaround to be a right click with the trackpad. Solves it instantly.

Cheers

John

Similar issue on my end -- seems to come out of no where, cursor function remains but the actual cursor is not visible. I usually press the power/fingerprint button and lock my user -- login seems to reset the cursor for now. Let's hope for a better patch with 11.2!

MacBook Pro M1 16GB 500GB

BigSur 11.1

I happed to me every time when I moved cursor before the complete launch. But when I disabled one feature this thing has gone completely. I mean, I TRY to trigger this bug at every single launch, but with no luck.

So the feature I'm talking about is: System Preferences/Accessibility/Monitor/Cursor -- and turn off "Move cursor to find it".

Of course, there could be no connection, but as I said the bug is gone since I did this, so you should try.

Yes, as john_netfixl says, if you right click the trackpad, the issue is resolved. Not ideal, but it seems to work.

I got a call from an Apple tech guy last week. We had an online session where we went through all the variations to confirm (or fix) the problem with Bluetooth connecting to my Logitech keyboard. It wasn't fixed, but he grabbed a copy of the log said he was passing it along to the engineers. So fingers crossed, they will address it in a future update.

In the meantime, the fix I posted up above about turning off FileVault is still working for me. Crazy that there is a connection between FileVault and Bluetooth, but you might try that until they get the problem fixed.

Same trackpad issue here as well. Purchased MacBook Pro M1 about two weeks ago. As soon as I opened the lid to set up for the first time I was immediately unable to use the trackpad, cursor was frozen on the screen. I though to myself great defective out the box. I decided to navigate using the tab and by luck was able to setup and install update, worked fine after that. Yesterday I turned on the MacBook and same issue again. I think I may have moved the mouse while the computer was starting up. As others have stated the trackpad still seems to function, only on the screen the cursor is frozen and doesn't move. A restart without touching the trackpad seemed to fix the issue. Seems like a software issue. Apple is shameful for not acknowledging this is a widespread issue. Running Big Sur 11.2.2

I also have this weird issue. I seem to be able to replicate the issue consistently if I move my mouse (using my trackpad) very quickly upon starting up the mac either from a restart or from a shutdown. The cursor stays frozen on the screen visually, but the mouse is functional as I am able to click and bring up my dock when the mouse hovers at the bottom of the screen. I think this is a software bug and not a hardware bug. Hopefully, this will be fixed soon.

I have the 13” M1. The cursor froze for the first time during setup and it has frozen several times since. It seems the only way to get out of it is to shut down and start back up again. I agree a new device shouldn’t behave this way. I am hoping for a quick resolution.

I didn't find the exact same setting, System Preferences/Accessibility/Display/Cursor -- and I turned off "Shake mouse pointer to locate", will let you know if this solves the issue for me. So far it's been very annoying.

Behaviour I'm seeing on M1 Air running Big Sur 11.2.3

No hardware attached.

Once in a while, the cursor will become unresponsive for about 2 seconds, and then set itself the lower left corner of the screen. Then after a few seconds, it will become responsive again. The time between this happening will slowly decrease until it's happening many times. As far as I can tell, there's no user-triggered behaviour, and I'm guessing there's a memory leak in a process or on some hardware which is cause the process/hardware to restart.

The problem is temporarily fixed by shutting down, closing lid for 30 seconds. My understanding is, this forces firmware to refresh on next book—equivalent of PRAM reset.

I'm expecting this is fixable in software, and not some problem inherent in the M1 architecture of this machine. Still unhappy about this.

I have the experienced the same Problem and could not use my mouse at all..restarted and the problem disappeared for now, but completely Inacceptable for a laptop in this price range.

MacBook Pro 13inch M1. Big Sur 11.1

This has been happening for me on my MBP M1 also. This morning, with the system having been on for hours but idle, it happened again (that is, not just after a start up). FileVault is not on either.

What I notice is that the cursor gets pulled back to the lower left corner of the screen. Attempting to drag the cursor out makes it disappear. Once I drag it out from the corner 3 to 4 times, it behaves.

Maybe there's a new Shame function in macOS where it tries to keep the cursor in the corner for a timeout: Bad cursor! No more clicking or dragging until you can play nicely with Big Sur.