mouse cursor icon stuck as beach ball

I've been having this too.

Since Mavericks.

I read about the multiple input devices idea on this thread.

I have a Wacom Tablet but I hardly ever use it and this spinning thing started before I installed it.

I use an old Microsoft 3D mouse with a driver to allocate key commands in various software and for the last two operating systems I have had to go into OS system prefs and select the driver every time I re-start the mac because otherwise the driver doesn't see the mouse and it only uses OS commands instead of the programmed ones.

After reading this thread I found and turned on my bluetooth Apple mouse that came with the iMac and which I don't use as it is not suitable for 3D.

The computer recognised the mouse and the spinning beach ball turned back into a pointer.

I turned the Apple mouse off again and the pointer stayed.

I now have two mouse related workarounds for Mavericks!

Same issue. So many baby errors in Maveriks ((

Yep: I've got it as well.

Looks like a restart is the only option. Not very satisfactory. ;-(

Or, alternatively, perform a task that causes a spinning beachball; when it's stopped spinning, it will revert to the normal cursor.

This worked for me:

Accessibity:Display:Invert Colors

then Invert colors back

In my case, I have an additional wired USB mouse connected in addition to my intuous - bumping it immediately restored the normal cursor. This method seems to work.

Just adding myself to this little annoyance, but I do have an intous 5, and multiple other pointing devices, so I will try some of these suggestions next time it happens 😉.

I didn't have to reboot but could just go to login screen and log back in, not having to close down everything.

Very annoying still.

Thanks guys, that did the trick. I have a Cintiq & magic mouse connected - nudging the mouse reverted the icon back to a pointer. Cheers

Same problem this morning, culminating weeks of what has been a daily ordeal to wake up my Macbook Pro and get to work. Much of this seems related to having an external monitor and mouse attached. Anyway I tried some of what was mentioned above (not plugging in a second mouse, and by the way I only have one pointing device attached). What worked for me was logging out and logging back in. I am hoping I don't have to add this to my daily ritual of unplugging the hdmi cable (to get rid of the pink screen and, sometimes, the pink mouse pointer that follows), typing in my password on a blank screen (this sometimes works when nothing else will wake the thing) etc. My Macs have always been cranky about waking up but Mavericks, instead of fixing the problem, has made it worse.

Same issue with a Wacom Graphire. Solved by turning my Magic Mouse on (via its hardware switch).

I just put my iMac to sleep then move my mouse and it resets