Disappearing mouse pointer

ron1004 said:

Exactly the same thing happening with my late 2011 MBP 17" after going from Lion to Mountain Lion.

At least I learn't here not to bother trying to re-install.

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Can you contact Apple and troubleshoot it, and let us know the results here? I wanted to contact Apple but my 2009 March iMac is out of Apple Care and Apple would charge me for support. So if you could turn this issue into Apple and see what they have to say about it. We would appreciate it greatly.
Thanks.

Contacting Apple tomorrow

I have the same issue. Just started today with my month old MBP. I'm only using the track pad, and it just happened while I was browsing online on Facebook... I find it comes back if I wiggle the mouse around like crazy but then it does go away again.

I'm heading into the Apple store tomorrow and will see what they say.

My early 2011 13" MBP has the vanishing curser issue. But my mid 2011 27" Imac does not! Hum... Downloaded 10.8 to both machines at same time.

J.C said:

Since upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion GM I've found my mouse pointer disappearing about once a day. I'll be browsing in Safari when the pointer disappears. It's still active in some way as roll-over effects are active as I attempt to find the pointer by moving my finger around the trackpad. After 10-20 seconds or so it appears again. Safari is basically all I use on this machine (nothing else running) so the system isn't under much load. But because I only use Safari I couldn't say if the issue specific to that app or not.

Any ideas?

P.S Additionally I've had a flickering affect on the text for a download listed in the current downloads pop-up bubble. Not sure if that's related.

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When this happens, try ⌘+Tab to other apps a few times. Your cursor will be visible again

The Amazing Disappearing Cursor

colloc said:

When this happens, try ⌘+Tab to other apps a few times. Your cursor will be visible again

Click to expand...

Yes, the Command-Tab trick always works but it IS ONLY a temporary work around. I as well as numerous others are experiencing this phenomenon across many different contexts {Lion, Mountain Lion, browsers, Adobe products, etc.}. This is a bonafide bug that still exists as ML 10.8.2 Does anybody at iWhatever Central get it?, or care?. Things that make ya' go hmmmmmmmmm. . .

I am using Snow Leopard, latest version 10.6.8, and have just had this problem. I was using my internet browser and the cursor disappeared. I thought this was due to a dead mouse battery but a new battery did not solve the problem.

I noted that as I scrolled over the display where the cursor should be the following:

1. The cursor appeared in the dock area but disappeared when the location was moved to the active window.
2. The effect of the cursor such as activating sleep via Expose was still operative and also that if the cursor location (just moving the invisible cursor around) hit an active area on the display, that would highlight that area.
3. If I used an app like Mousepose, I could see where my cursor should be even though it was not there. This allowed me to exit out of programs and restart my computer.
4. Upon restart, the cursor is now working.
5. I cannot think of anything I did that would initiate this cursor disappearance. I looked for a setting in universal access but could not find anything to recreate this.

Lastly, Googling this problem resulted in seeing many posts including AppleSupport forums but NO solution or explanation was given in all searches that I have made so far.

Ugh... I thought I was going nuts or I just can't spot the cursor. I'm using a Cinema Display with my early 2011 MBP and every once in awhile the cursor disappears. This has only happened since 10.8.

ESC1574 said:

I have the same issue. Just started today with my month old MBP. I'm only using the track pad, and it just happened while I was browsing online on Facebook... I find it comes back if I wiggle the mouse around like crazy but then it does go away again.

I'm heading into the Apple store tomorrow and will see what they say.

Click to expand...

This has happened to me a couple of times as well

Whats happening? What's wrong with my macbook. Do i need to bring it in to the apple store?

sammyvine said:

This has happened to me a couple of times as well

Whats happening? What's wrong with my macbook. Do i need to bring it in to the apple store?

Click to expand...

I doubt they can fix the problem for you. The problem is within OS X's codes, and that's not something any geniuses can help fix until the iOS team at Apple HQ figures out and issues a fix.
Try switching to another app after you see the mouse pointer again. Then switch back to your original app.

colloc said:

I doubt they can fix the problem for you. The problem is within OS X's codes, and that's not something any geniuses can help fix until the iOS team at Apple HQ figures out and issues a fix.
Try switching to another app after you see the mouse pointer again. Then switch back to your original app.

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Does it happen to you?

sammyvine said:

Does it happen to you?

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It does! But not quite as frequent. Usually it happens with full screen apps for me. Just Alt Tab a few times and it appears again.

colloc said:

It does! But not quite as frequent. Usually it happens with full screen apps for me. Just Alt Tab a few times and it appears again.

Click to expand...

Oh so theres nothing wrong with my laptop?

This happens to me every couple of days or once a day? The cursor just disappears, and in a couple of seconds it appears again.

Solution for disapearing mouse pointer after mac wakes up

I read this post and didn't see a solution. I called Apple Support and here was their solution which worked!

1. Shut down your computer.
2. Hold down the "Shift" key and then press the power on button.
3. Continue to hold down the "Shift" key until you see the Apple logo and a progress bar below the logo.
When you see the progress bar, release the "Shift" key and let it boot up into "Safe" mode.
4. Reboot the computer and then make it sleep.
5. Wait a couple of minutes and the wake up your computer and see if you mouse pointer is visible.

Hope this helps.

Disappearing mouse pointer

My mouse pointer disappears randomly when using any web browser. The only way that I've found to get it back is to click in the menu bar. That usually does the trick.

Running a 2009 Mac Pro with a wireless USB Logitech MX Revolution mouse.

I reckon it is Flash. I get it when watching movies on LoveFilm.

dweaver said:

I read this post and didn't see a solution. I called Apple Support and here was their solution which worked!

1. Shut down your computer.
2. Hold down the "Shift" key and then press the power on button.
3. Continue to hold down the "Shift" key until you see the Apple logo and a progress bar below the logo.
When you see the progress bar, release the "Shift" key and let it boot up into "Safe" mode.
4. Reboot the computer and then make it sleep.
5. Wait a couple of minutes and the wake up your computer and see if you mouse pointer is visible.

Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

Is this a permanent solution? - I hope they don't expect you to do this every time it happens...

This randomly happened to me for the first time on a clean install of 10.8.2. on a 2011 27" i7 iMac. No idea why, all my others Mac's - 12-Core Mac Pro, 2012 MacBook Air, 2011 Mac Mini - all running 10.8.2 do not have this issue. The iMac didn't either until the clean install, and nothing was carried over as I installed everything from scratch.

Very odd. The only thing I can think of is that I enlarged the mouse pointer in "Universal Access" as it's my father's iMac and he has vision troubles. Nothing aside from that difference.

Losing cursor in Mail 6.2

I'm on my 27" iMac (3.08 Ghz, 10.8.2), and my cursor goes missing when writing and editing emails in Mail v6.2. It eventually shows itself but it's happening all the time! This is so frustrating.

Happening in Photoshop

I just upgraded from 10.6.8 to 10.8.2 and suddenly my cursor is disappearing ever so often in Photoshop (CS5).

Was this ever solved?

Ohkamp said:

In happens like crazy in Photoshop for me since upgrading to Mountain Lion. I can't really work if I can't use the cursor! It only seems to happen over the menus and windows but not the actual canvas.

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I have exactly the same problem. I upgraded to Mountain Lion and I haven't had any problems at all apart from this.
I don't loose the cursor in any other programs so far, only Photoshop. I have Photoshop CS5, never had a problem with it until now.
I have no problems at all when I'm on the canvas, but sometimes just out of nowhere when I go to the any of my menus or toolbars you can't see the arrow but you know it's somewhere there because things are highlighted.
I have no idea what happens, then I'll click on my mouse sometimes or click off of photoshop onto the desktop and then back onto photoshop and it's back to normal, sometimes it takes much longer. I am a photographer and this is happening a lot, it's a pain as it disrupts my work and I am constantly loosing time trying to get it back to normal.
I hope Apple can fix this problem sometime very soon.

This problem has been around since Lion for me, only in Photoshop and while using the wacom tablet. I can get the mouse cursor back by moving it down to the OSX menu bar and up again. But, it's REALLY annoying and it happens all the time.
SInce it has been around for a while I wonder if Apple has any plans to fix this ?

iwan073 said:

My mouse pointer doesn't disappear, but it doesn't always change into the right... um...shape?

I mean, if i hover over a link, it doesn't always change into a hand.
If I want to resize a window, it doesn't always change into one of those 2 sided pointers.

But this was happening in Lion too.

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I'm curious if you ever figured out a fix to this? For the past couple of weeks my husbands iMac has been doing this. No more "hand" cursor when hovering over a link and the cursor doesn't automatically open drop down menus as it had been doing before. When it happened we were watching something on Hulu. One moment it was fine & the next this was happening. I don't have any problems with my mbp thankfully but since we use his iMac a lot as our tv it's a real pain in the arse.

Does anyone have any additional info on this? I don't even know what to search on google for...hand cursor not working?? Ha.

I haven't noticed this "problem" anymore really.
I guess they fixed this in a patch?
Or maybe I got used to it?!

Besides disappearing at times, my mouse cursor likes to change between solid black and outlined black while moving in Firefox and other applications.

MacPro 3,1 with 18GB memory (did this with 12GB too)
OS 10.8.2
Microsoft wired mouse
Apple chicklet wired keyboard

Just switched to the MagicMouse (bluetooth) and it does the same thing. Then noticed this, it only happens in Firefox.

I've seemed to have solved my problem with my mouse pointer.

Wacom Bamboo driver removed ( the extra one that was installed when I installed my Bamboo tablet)

Microsoft drivers removed (both keyboard and mouse)

Tried USB Overdrive. Removed it as well.

No more flashing/blinking mouse and no more disappearing mouse cursor.