Mouse cursor disappears.

seegoer wrote:

It's not chrome. I don't use it, and many people report this happening in other apps such as Safari.

Yes and both Chrome and Safari uses Flash. Other people have reported that it happens when working in or upgrading Photoshop. Both are from Adobe and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there's some Flash components in Photoshop or if Adobe silently upgrades Flash when you install Photoshop.

It has never happened to me untill the day last week when I upgraded Flash. Then it happened three times just that day.

I have found a solution that works for me: Go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Zoom -> activate "Use scroll gestures with modifier keys to zoom".

With that, CTRL + zooming in/out on the trackpad brought back the mouse cursor for me.

EDIT: And when I started suspecting Safari/Flash, I closed Safari every time after browsing (for some reason it seemed to happen only when the Mac was not in use and I came back after some minutes/hours to use it, never when actually using it). Then the problem went away untill I left Safari open as a test.

Suddenly the mouse cursor disappeared again.

I have a mac mini running Mountain Lion and iMac running dual monitor on Lion. Both computers have this same problem of the mouse doing a disappearing act, On the iMac Im not too bothered about the problem I just hit cmd + tab and the mouse reappears, I can live with that although really shouldnt have too.

The mac mini is brand new straight out of the apple store, im using it as a media center on the TV so its only got Plex installed I dont have a keyboard attached, this seems to be a massive problem as once its gone theres no getting it back unless you restart the thing? It seems to always happen after I exit Plex which comes from being in full screen mode so I think pdostal_cz is on to something but as I dont have a mouse or touchpad I dont think it can be to do with shortcuts? Is there no script that you can run to get the mouse back or something that doesnt require a keyboard or restart everytime?

Is this the only forum in the world that doesn't take you back to the topic you were viewing when you actually sign in? lol,,,

Anyways, I have disabled the accessibility->display->cursor size feature I had cranked up for the mouse cursor since I am using a 27" cinema display and really everything is just too small on it at the default settings and since then I have not had the cursor disappear at all.

I am suspecting this bug occurs whenever anything changes the cursor size or perhaps the cursor itself as some applicaitons do, like full screen mode, etc.

Try simply putting the mouse cursor size to 'normal' and see if it continues not using any fancy apps just the normal OSX and its apps. If this works for you for more then a day I think we found the issue.

Yeah, I really think this is it.

Something in their cursor size code is getting lost during render. I suspect any size except for normal causes it to require hardware accelerated resources to resize the cursor bitmap and it is getting deadlocked doing this resize by another process. Most likely a priority inversion.

brianric wrote:

I think we have a winner. I just set the mouse cursor size to 'normal' and I have not lost my cursor in three hours and counting.

groovyd wrote:

Yeah, I really think this is it.

Something in their cursor size code is getting lost during render. I suspect any size except for normal causes it to require hardware accelerated resources to resize the cursor bitmap and it is getting deadlocked doing this resize by another process. Most likely a priority inversion.

Not necessarily. I just checked my Mini, and the mouse cursor was and has always been set to 'normal'.

i will admit I have done all the other "fixes" that other posters recommend, so many I can't remember. Heck, if you told me to dye my hair purple and set it on fire to resolve the problem, I would consider it as I was getting desparate. :-)

How's this for wierd. It get this issue only when using MS Outlook for Mac and replying to an email - and only when I type a word with an apostrophe, such I'll or I'm - the letter folllowing the apostrope is then capitalised and the cursor lost! The same is happening to a colleague, who also uses MS Outlook on mac.

I am quite sure it does fix the problem for the suite of normal OSX apps that come with the OS. I have a feeling you may be using an app which may internally affect the mouse cursor or size setting such as full screen mode or spaces, launchpad, some of the newer apps etc... for a day try using Normal cursor with just mail and safari for example. turn off flash just as a test.

My cursor is already set to normal. And I doubt it's flash, but I could be wrong. Here's why: I have eight computers here at work (MB Pro 2010, MB Pro 2011, MB Air, two mac mini servers as desktops, etc.) all running Mountain Lion. Only two Macs don't have the problem -- one that I just purchased (haven't used much) and the older MB Pro. All use the same settings and apps. Unlike many of the other reports here, this only occurs after awaking from sleep mode regardless of the app. I've tried many solutions — resetting pram clean installs, etc.

My latest hunch is that it's a migration issue. All the computers, except the old Mac used Mountain Lion's Migration Assistant. I'm wondering if anyone here has the problem without using Migration Assistant.

I'm currently doing a clean install and not using Migration Assistant; to see if this makes a difference. I may not know for weeks. One computer didn't show the problem until two weeks later.

I've had hundreds of Macs since the first Classic, and it seems to me that this is the buggiest OS upgrade I've come across. All kinds of weird mysterious things have been happening with the OS. This is just one of several bugs I'm dealing with — even when I'm not using Migration Assistant. Hope we see some major fixes soon.

I did a completely fresh install of my Mountain Lion install, I formatted the drive completely and then install Mountain Lion fresh, I've not even installed Flash as I use Chrome for my browser.

The problem is not Flash, its not migration Assistant, nor is it a hardware issue, its quite simply an OS bug that needs fixing. Incidently my mouse cursor is also set to normal by default and this hasn't fixed the issue for me, the only thing that has kinda worked is to remove all my other desktops and just use the one, it seems side swiping on my Apple Magic Mouse from one screen to the other and then zooming is what triggers the disappearring cursor for me.

Well, this is very interesting. I have a distinct feeling that Apple don't pay much attention to complaints on this discussion group (unless, but only sometimes, they are made by Feedback). (But I could be wrong.) Mouse disconnection problems have been going on during and since Leopard (four OSs and about 15 upgrades!), on many computers, and not yet fixed despite many Feedbacks and a huge number of postings!

However, I sent Feedback to Apple suggesting that when I have opened and read a post and returned to the list, it would be helpful if the indication that I have read the message was not in faint grey which is almost indistinguishable from other listings, but something more conspicuous. About a month later (a month later!), the present blue dot appeared on all posts and disappeared when I read one (provided the "Discussions" tab is selected). Congratulations, Apple!

Right, like I said you cannot be using multiple spaces... I think this feature modifies the cursor. Try being a simple user, nothing power-user-like. One desktop safari and mail for a day. The kind of old lady type user like your mom would do. I have not had one problem since setting cursor to normal and i used to get it every 5 minutes. I do not use multiple desktops,, spaces, dashboard, super launcher, none of that crap.

Well, I have my cursor set to a bigger size, and I do use multiple desktops, dashboard, and other things, and since an "erase and install" of M. Lion (after Lion when I had mouse cursor dissapearings sometimes three times a day.), I have had no troubles after 2 1/2 weeks.

Dear Apple Fans,

For what it is worth, at work I work on a Windows PC, and using the Safari browser (after having trojan horse prob with Firefox) I began having the disappearing cursor a few weeks ago. I don't know if the problem is related to the Firefox problem, or if it is just Safari. Therefore, whether it is due to your Mac OS seems less likely imo than the possibility that the disappearing cursor is related to Safari?