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Mouse cursor disappears after using external display

mduser63

mduser63

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 9, 2004
3,042
31
Salt Lake City, UT
This has been giving me trouble for a long time and I wanted to see if anyone has found any sort of a solution to it. Sometimes when I have been using my Powerbook with an external display, and then I disconnect the external display, my mouse pointer will disappear. It's still there, it's just invisible. I can move it around and see the dock magnify when I get to the bottom of the screen, and see buttons highlight etc. Anyway, the only way to get it back is to either plug the external monitor back in, or even just plug the mini-DVI to VGA adapter in without the external monitor connected. However, as soon as I disconnect it again, the mouse pointer turns invisible again. Of course if I restart the problem goes away temporarily too. I realize this is most likely a real bug that Apple should fix, however I'm wondering if anyone has found a reliable way to get the cursor to come back without restarting or plugging the second display back in again. I've tried logging out and back in and that doesn't work, nor does changing screen resolutions. Any ideas?
 
This happens to me every once in awhile. Like you, the only solution I've really found is a restart.

Maybe putting the machine to sleep before removing the external monitor would stop the problem? I don't think I've ever tried that.
 
Just happened to me last night. Never happened before. I think 10.3.8 may have been the culprit although I have not tested moving the cursor the the main screen before disconnecting the second monitor.

A restart usually fixes it although its a rather tiresome approach.
 
It's not just 10.3.8, as I've seen this problem show up on 10.3.6 and 10.3.7 (the only other two versions I've run on my relatively new PB).
 
Same here under 10.3.8 on a 17" PowerBook with a projector.

I've found that is you disconnect the display/projector and force the machine to "Detect Displays" then close the lid, then the cursor seems to be there when you re-open the machine.
 
You have to make sure the mouse is on the main display before you unplug the external one. I had the same problem but then I realized that it only happened when the mouse was on the external display when I unplugged it.
 
Thanks for the tip, boat. I'll try that in the future. Apple should still fix it so that not matter what you do, the cursor can't disappear.
 
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