Cursor randomly becoming misaligned

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Level 1

39 points

Cursor randomly becoming misaligned

I have a 2017 13 inch MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar, and ever since Catalina I’ve been having problems with the hot spot on the cursor go out of alignment.

By that I mean if I wanted to click on File in the menu bar and placed the pointer on the word File and pressed the mouse, or trackpad button then some other word in the menu would become active. To re-align the pointer all I have to do is shove the cursor to a corner of the screen and it returns to normal.

This has proven to be dangerous since one time I wanted to click on the Print icon in the Mail toolbar and the Trash icon was activated!

I thought maybe this was a bug in Catalina for this laptop model and Big Sur would correct it, but it didn’t.

I even created a second user account to do some Pages work and Pages seems to aggravate the issue even more.

I did an SMC reset of the laptop but that didn’t work.

Any idea what could be doing this? A fix would be very much appreciated.

Posted on Mar 13, 2021 1:29 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 15, 2021 12:36 PM in response to plcmms

Hi plcmms,

We understand that you're experiencing an issue with the cursor on your MacBook Pro, and we want to help.

To help us get a better understanding of the issue, we’d like to ask a few questions.

Does this happen in all apps, or only some?
If you use an external mouse, do you experience the same behavior?
Which version of macOS Big Sur are you currently running? Here's how to check: Find out which macOS your Mac is using
We know you mentioned running into the same issue in other user accounts, but can you also let us know if the issue persists in safe mode? More about using safe mode here: Start up your Mac in safe mode

Thanks!

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Answer 2

plcmms Author

Level 1

39 points

Mar 15, 2021 1:09 PM in response to Brittany1416

Thank you for the reply, Brittany

If you don't mind let me hold off a couple of days before I answer you because I don't seem to have the problem at this time.

I know that I said that I still had the problem after the SMC reset, however, since doing that I have had the problem only one time, and it was right after the boot up from the reset. Since then I have not had an issue with the cursor.

Let me use the Mac for a couple of more days before I give a verdict on the SMC reset.

Again, thanks for the reply. If the problem does not come back I will make a post about the SMC reset fixing it.

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Answer 3

plcmms Author

Level 1

39 points

Mar 16, 2021 3:20 PM in response to plcmms

Well, things have been good for a couple of days and I thought the SMC did the trick.

I had been working in Pages and opened Pages Help to figure out how to do something and then the misalignment problem came back.

To answer your questions;

1. I keep Mail and Safari open all the time and this problem started last year while still in Catalina prior to installing Big Sur in November. The problem has continued in Big Sur.

2. Yes, it happens with both the trackpad and mouse.

3. I always stay current with macOS and my apps. Big Sur is 11.2.3

4. Yes, the problem also exists in Safe mode. As soon as I opened Mail the misalignment showed itself. Moving the cursor to the corner fixed it.

Hope this helps.

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Cursor randomly becoming misaligned

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