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mouse cursor disappears

MBP 10.7 - mouse Disappears - quick solution

This happens to me several times a day, usually after the monitor goes to sleep and the mouse "sleeps." I can move the mouse and see tooltips or see that the mouse is over certain screen elements. To restore the mouse, I just move it to the bottom of the screen over the launchbar, it highlights the program icons and then when I move it up back into the screen or active program, the mouse reappears.
It is such an odd behavior for Apple to know about and not be able to fix.
 
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I had this problem persistently in around November/December. I eventually managed to pinpoint the problem to flash player. Try reinstalling it then restarting. It hasn't done it for me since.
 
MacbookPro OSx10.7.3: Mouse Cursor Disappearing

atheistpally said:
i'm also having an issue with my mouse cursor disappearing regularly. for me this problem started recently, about the time i bought a new external drive and hooked it up to use it for time machine.

the way i solve it for now is just by waving my mouse around on the mouse pad until i see the cursor again. it's still pretty frustrating though, because it can happen about every 15 minutes.

i'm thinking this solution works because it's probably doing the same as what another poster said about hitting the hot spot(s) on the screen to bring it back.

really hope they fix this soon
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I'm on 10.7.3 Lion and the mouse cursor just started disappearing recently in the past couple of weeks. It seems to happen when I have firefox browser open. The cursor not only disappears on firefox completely but it also disappears sometimes when I drag it to other screens.

This needs to be fixed though. This is ridiculous. You can't use the computer with the mouse disappearing every 15 seconds. I've had my macbook pro for 1.5 years almost and this has never happened before now.
 
jaredpotts said:
I have discovered that for me if you clean the Internet Cache, that it works for me.

My mouse disappeared, and went to Hulu which told me I needed to clean my cache rather randomly (all the while with pointer not seen). I deleted Chrome's history/cache, and then my pointer returned, and hasn't disappeared.

Try it out, might work for you.
Click to expand...

Thanks, this helped! I'm using Rockmelt on an Early 2011 MacBook Pro 15", running Lion 10.7.3. Clearing the cache took quite a while, but my cursor reappeared halfway through the process, and stayed after the cache finished clearing.

Also, I was not browsing MacRumors before my cursor disappeared, just Gmail.
 
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Just started having this problem in the past few days. Glad I'm not the only one. For me it seems to be connected to MPlayer OS X Extended, but everyone seems to be blaming different programs.
 
Having the same problem here.

Mac Mini with Apple wireless kb and mighty mouse.

Happens when I have firefox open. I think it only occurs when a flash video is playing (particularly firstrowsports that I'm watching for the NCAA tournament). Haven't found out how to duplicate it, but it happens pretty frequently.

So like borisiii, I'm attributing it to Flash.

I am able to make it reappear at will by clicking.
 
Cursor disappearing in Lion

I have also had this problem since about as soon as I received my MacBook Pro in December of 2011. It happens when using photoshop, browsing the internet, playing games, etc. It usually happens when moving between my laptop monitor and my main monitor, which I have hooked up with a mini display to DVI adapter. I have called Apple about this 2 or 3 times without them being able to offer any solution--only to blame it on Adobe. Well, now that I have upgraded to CS5 and have seen it happen when Adobe software wasn't running, I now know it is a problem on Apple's end. I suggest everyone in this thread also call Apple at least twice like I have and to demand they have their engineers work on a solution. This is unacceptable.

The best "workaround" I have for this to get the cursor back is to hit ⌘-tab twice. This switches to the last app focused and back to the current one. This always brings the cursor back for me without losing the position by moving the mouse.

Update- I just uninstalled and reinstalled Flash Player then restarted like borisiii suggested, and so far so good. Only time will tell...

Update #2 - The Flash Player reinstall didn't fix it -- no software changes since I reinstalled, and I am now having this problem very soon after I started working in Photoshop again.
 
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@shwaldman:
Same problem on Snow Leopard v10.6.8. I use gfxCardStatus and the Intel HD 3000 (MBP 17", Early-2011). The problem is certainly sleep-related. In my case only a double-restart solved the problem. I thought it was my mouse.

The only new software, which i installed in the last weeks/days was the Flash Player < v11.2.x.x plugin (usually disabled). And no, i do not use third party mouse drivers.
 
Update:
In my case the problem was an extension cable (USB, 30 cm). I used a different cable of the same length, and now the mouse does no longer freeze or "disappear" within the System/Mouse preferences. I use the Microsoft Arc Mouse (wireless). I do not use the mouse receiver/transmitter without an extension cable, because the MBP-Unibody can cause reception problems.

My theory is, that Apple updated the USB drivers in Mac OS X 10.6.4 and newer, so that they recognize lower or more USB-signal levels. This improves probably the accuracy of the mouse, but can cause also problems, if the shielding of the USB-cable is defective.
 
Hi everybody...i have the same problem, when i wake up my macbook after sleep, i can see my screen, but no mouse cursor...nothing seems to work for me, only hard reboot...hope that apple finds a solution soon..
 
Patrick35 said:
This mouse disappearing thingy is very troublesome! One solution that I found is the following:

-First find the current position of your cursor: press the left button and drag the mouse to see the colored area on your desktop.
-Go to "Universal access" under "Preferences".
-Change the cursor size.
-After that make permanent "Universal access" in taskbar to use it when in need.

This procedure worked for me but Apple has to fix this bug because we are many with this issue out there...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the fix. This happened to me after switching back from target display mode on my iMac.
 
berdmehn said:
Same happens when I full screen on external
Click to expand...

the same thing here, as well. 2011 mac mini w/ 6630m connected to 2 external monitors. the mouse cursor disappears when i go to fullscreen mode of a video that i play using a web browser (firefox). ie, video on one tab is on one monitor and other tabs are open on the other monitor and mouse behavior is fine if the video is not in fullscreen mode, but once i put video on fullscreen mode, the mouse cursor is temporarily invisible. i can only get it back if i click outside the web browser, ie, the desktop. but, the mouse cursor will go invisible again after a while until i click outside the web browser again.

wow. long winded explanation. hope it makes sense.

maybe, this mouse behavior is built-in or something so the viewer pays attention to the movie or tv show playing instead of multitasking?
 
same problem quick shaking of the mouse pointer seems to fix it but curious to try that cmd tab click solution also

also attributing it to flash
 
Same annoying issue, I came here looking for a permanent fix but I'll give my current fix...

Whenever my mouse cursor disappears I bring up Dashboard and it reappears...
I've set up dashboard to come up over the current screen, not as a space, and then I use a hot corner for it to appear when I angrily lose the cursor I toss my invisible mouse toward said corner and it comes back.
 
I've been experiencing the same issue. It's very annoying. After doing some troubleshooting, I've noticed that only happens when I full screen a flash video (on a external monitor).

The quickest solution I have found to bring the cursor back to life is press the F3 key, and it will reappear. How can we get this issue resolved by Apple? :(

EDIT: I'm on 10.7.4
 
clear history to resolve mouse disappering

I came across the mouse disappearing issue while using firefox, deleted recent history(1 hour) and problem went away!
 
I found a solution that works for me: Disabling the add-on: Flip4Mac Windows Media Plugin 2.3.5
Since doing so, my cursor has not disappeared anymore. Hope this helps
 
This is very likely caused by the Flash plugin. In my case this happened exclusively with Safari, Firefox and Chrome windows, and typically only after I'd been watching Flash content.

When I went into a terminal and looked up the process id for the flash plugin and then killed it, my cursor started working correctly again right away.
 
This has happened to me twice since having my iMac. What's the easiest way to kill Flash processes without having a functioning mouse? I suppose I could restart it until the cursor reappears but I'm the only one using the iMac so I wouldn't necessarily know if the issue happens again.

UPDATE: I just restarted my iMac and all was well. I guess I'll just have to restart each time. Lame.
 
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homrb said:
i have a 13 inch macbook pro running 10.6. Every so often (a few times a day) my mouse cursor will disappear off my screen. It still works because things are hilighted on the screen and I can still click things when i move the trackpad around with my finger, there is just no pointer on the screen. This only started happening this week and I have had this computer for about 7 months. Any solutions?
Click to expand...

i am willing to bet you have a browser open and one of your tabs has some sort of flash enabled video/ui going on.
 
What fixed it for me was switching users. I have the users icon in my menu bar and I just changed users and then came back and it was fine...extremely frustrating though.
 
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