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Mystery grey trail from mouse

Lately when I leave my machine on for a while I get a trail of grey block when I move the mouse. It is not a screen saver. It is a small, grey square....light in color. When you move the cursor, it draws additional small, grey square and trails your cursor. Wherever you go, there are more grey squares/blobs. It's not part of a screen saver. The only way to get rid of this is to turn the machine off manually and restart as the mouse is unable to click on anything.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Nov 15, 2012 12:30 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Nov 15, 2012 1:43 PM

Hello,


I wonder if it's a variation of this, of which I've seen many different symptoms...


Resolution

Move the mouse or trackpad cursor over the center area of the login window so you can see the user icons. Click on the icon of the user that you would like to login as, type in the user's password, and press Return.

If the login window is configured to show only the name and password fields, type in the user's name and password into the fields, and press Return (even if you cannot see the rest of the login window).

Additional Information

This issue will not occur if the display is not sleeping when the account is logged out. Use the steps below to confirm that the account is not configured to log out automatically while the display is sleeping:

1. Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Click the padlock to unlock the preference pane and enter your admin password. Click the Advanced button at the bottom, then see if the option "Log out after N minutes of inactivity" (where N is the number of minutes) is enabled.

2. Open System Preferences > Energy Saver and configure Display Sleep to occur after the account is logged out, by dragging the slider to a number of minutes that is greater than N was set to in the previous step.

Important: If automatic log out is not needed, disable "Log out after Nminutes of inactivity" in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. This will also prevent the issue.


http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4135?viewlocale=en_US

2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Nov 15, 2012 1:43 PM in response to fc griz fan

Hello,


I wonder if it's a variation of this, of which I've seen many different symptoms...


Resolution

Move the mouse or trackpad cursor over the center area of the login window so you can see the user icons. Click on the icon of the user that you would like to login as, type in the user's password, and press Return.

If the login window is configured to show only the name and password fields, type in the user's name and password into the fields, and press Return (even if you cannot see the rest of the login window).

Additional Information

This issue will not occur if the display is not sleeping when the account is logged out. Use the steps below to confirm that the account is not configured to log out automatically while the display is sleeping:

1. Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. Click the padlock to unlock the preference pane and enter your admin password. Click the Advanced button at the bottom, then see if the option "Log out after N minutes of inactivity" (where N is the number of minutes) is enabled.

2. Open System Preferences > Energy Saver and configure Display Sleep to occur after the account is logged out, by dragging the slider to a number of minutes that is greater than N was set to in the previous step.

Important: If automatic log out is not needed, disable "Log out after Nminutes of inactivity" in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General. This will also prevent the issue.


http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4135?viewlocale=en_US

Mystery grey trail from mouse

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