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Mouse "disappearing" since Tahoe

walterhpdx

walterhpdx

macrumors member
Original poster
Ever since upgrading to macOS Tahoe, I've noticed a maddening problem with basic mouse functions. I have a few M1 Mac Minis that I run for various "behind the scenes" reasons like a backup server, a media server and the like. Ever since Tahoe whenever I'm using either Apple Remote Desktop or Screen Sharing to perform duties on those macs, the mouse will just suddenly disappear. It's like it's stuck inside of one of the machines and just won't react at all. Usually after about 10 minutes of wild swinging of the mouse, it'll finally "catch on" and unlink itself to whatever process was stuck, but sometimes (like TWICE today) I have to hard boot my Mac Mini M4 Pro in order to bring the mouse back.

It's a wired mouse, but that doesn't matter all that much because it's happened with multiple mice. I honestly don't know what else I can do besides put all of my remote machines on a KVM switch and not access them via ScreenShare/Remote Desktop.

Anyone else seeing this? Is there any fix? Anything?
 
I've had this setup for the last decade plus, from my 2010 Mac Pro and some old Mac Minis to today - and have never had this problem. I can't imagine why I would need to use software that's not out of the box, so no. I can't imagine try this, but overall, no.
 
Just one Mac mini (M4 Pro) here, remotely accessed from my MacBook Pro via Share Screen (either using the built-in trackpad or a Magic Mouse) but no, I’m not seethe behavior you describe.
 
It's more like about ten seconds for me, but two things are happening -- cursor disappearances on screen, and mouse dropouts wirelessly.

First, the mouse cursor temporarily disappearing from screen has been a thing in Sequoia and perhaps before too. And on both my new laptop and my previous one. I suspect some apps are in disagreement of some kind.

Second, the signal to the mouse itself also sometimes drops for no good reason. I have been trying to shift as much as I can to 5GHz for wireless to limit interference on 2.4.
 
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If anyone is curious (or if this happens to anyone else) I found the problem. It was that since the single Mac Mini (2024) was the one with the display, and my backup server, media server, and another general use server are in the same office, macOS thought the machines were both A) nearby and B) had displays and was sending my cursor there.

I hadn't disabled the "Allow your pointer and keyboard to move between any nearby Mac or iPad" setting in the Display menu. It makes sense - FRUSTRATING since those machines don't have monitors, but still.
 
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Had a similar mess with a headless mini I use for backup/media — Universal Control was routing my cursor toward it the moment I hit the edge of the Screen Sharing window (since it's Continuity-paired and technically 'nearby'). No display to catch it, so the pointer just vanished. Your fix is the right one, but if anyone wants to keep UC on for their main setup: signing the servers into a separate Apple ID works too, they don't need your main iCloud for TM or media serving duties.
 
My Mighty Mouse disconnects a couple times a day and then connects a couple minutes later, I hope the Public Release gets worked out along with the Time Machine failure to complete a backup and the "reached maximum blocked accounts" when trying to block spam and robocalls.
 
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