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Mouse pointer disappears on second monitor.

After updating to Lion my mouse pointer will sometimes disappear on my second monitor. If I move it back to my primary monitor is will return. Doesn't happen with any regular occurrence, seems pretty random. Thoughts?

Quad G5 paper weight, 2009 Mac Mini,, Mac OS X (10.6.2), Original iPhone 8GB, 16g iPhone 4, iPod touch 4 and iPad ][

Posted on Jul 25, 2011 10:32 AM

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Posted on Aug 24, 2017 11:19 AM

******************** I HAVE SOLVED THIS PROBLEM (at least for me) ********************


Ok so I literally just "fixed" it accidentally while working on another tip from another thread.


Going into System Preferences --> Accessibility --> Display, I increased the "Cursor size" and tada! Now it shows up on all screens.


Interestingly/bizarrely, playing around with this feature, it only worked once the Cursor size got about 2/3 between "Normal" and the first tick to the right. Any smaller and it disappears again. This seems strangely arbitrary and I can't figure out why this works. I would think maybe it has something to do with relative resolutions of the monitors but that wouldn't explain why it displays fine on the second, mirrored, monitor.


Hope this helps someone else!

110 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Aug 24, 2017 11:19 AM in response to MikeMulligan

******************** I HAVE SOLVED THIS PROBLEM (at least for me) ********************


Ok so I literally just "fixed" it accidentally while working on another tip from another thread.


Going into System Preferences --> Accessibility --> Display, I increased the "Cursor size" and tada! Now it shows up on all screens.


Interestingly/bizarrely, playing around with this feature, it only worked once the Cursor size got about 2/3 between "Normal" and the first tick to the right. Any smaller and it disappears again. This seems strangely arbitrary and I can't figure out why this works. I would think maybe it has something to do with relative resolutions of the monitors but that wouldn't explain why it displays fine on the second, mirrored, monitor.


Hope this helps someone else!

Aug 24, 2017 11:04 AM in response to Negatetime

I've been having this issue with my 2015 imac (thunderbolt/display port) and now my new 2017 imac (USB C), across multiple OSX updates.


I have three monitors:

1) My primary imac display

2) A secondary 1080p dell monitor

3) My 1080p TV


Monitors 2 and 3 are mirrored. My mouse cursor doesn't show on one of them but DOES show on the other. If I switch which thunderbolt/usb-c port they're plugged into, the problem switches displays.


Can't figure out what could be causing this. Just seems like a bug in apple's display software. It's amazing to me it's not fixed yet, as it's been three years.

Aug 23, 2011 10:49 AM in response to Negatetime

I'm having the same problem too. My 2nd monitor is a Samsung LED TV - and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to why this is happening. It's a new 27in iMac (Radeon HD 6970M, 3.1 GHz Intel Core i5) and i'm using a displayport/thunderbolt to HDMI converter for the 2nd screen.


This seems to happen only on my primary monitor, although more often than not I'm playing video on the 2nd.


Initially I cursed the magic mouse, thinking it had lost connectivity, but it's always there - just invisible. Move it to the TV and it's back again. Move to the iMac and it quickly vanishes again.


I never had this problem with my old 2007 24in iMac


This is random though - not all the time, so i'm stumped as to the cause.


Looking forward to a fix as it's getting right on my thruppeny bits....

Mouse pointer disappears on second monitor.

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