My mouse has a icon... and it won't let go!

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Level 1

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My mouse has a icon... and it won't let go!

This is really the weirdest thing, but when clicking and dragging something (Pages, Keynote, icons & folders around the desktop) it shows a light shadow of what I am moving under the mouse arrow. Normally, when I let go or release the click the shadow disappears and drops the dragged item where it is supposed to be. What's happening now is it hangs on and won't go away. I can move my mouse all over the place and the shadow is stuck to it like glue. This has never happened before and am wondering if there is a software flaw of some sort or is my settings just messed up.. or... did I do something like Microsoft's "Sticky Fingers" and click shift 5 times and cause this to happen? If so, how in the world to I get it to stop? The only way I can get it to let go is to power the computer off which stinks when working on large projects. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Feb 1, 2013 9:56 PM

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Answer 1

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clintonfrombirmingham

Level 7

30,100 points

Feb 1, 2013 10:31 PM in response to guitarfool15

I've never even heard of that type of behavior... there are a few things you could try, I suppose.

The first would be to use Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities folder) and use it to verify and repair permissions. Also, just for the heck of it, verify your hard drive while you're there (you won't be able to repair it if errors are shown). If errors do come up, you'll have to boot to your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys whilst booting) and use Disk Utility there to repair your hard drive.

If a repair of your permissions doesn't solve the problem and there are no errors on your hard drive, I would recommend just installing the OS again. Boot to your Recovery partition and elect to install a 'fresh' copy of ML. It wont' hurt any of your data, apps, etc., but it might get rid of the 'sticky' cursor problem.

Clinton

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Answer 2

guitarfool15 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 2, 2013 9:39 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

did the first suggestion, found a ton of permission errors, fixed them, but it's still doing it.

Going to do the second part when I get some down time. Thank you for letting me know! I will let you know if it works (which I hope it does)

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Answer 3

guitarfool15 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 2, 2013 12:32 PM in response to guitarfool15

Well, neither worked. I do have everything backed up that I want to keep so I will just do a full factory restore on it. It is due for some serious 'house cleaning' anyways so this will most likely get it. Thank you for your help.

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