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Mouse pointer not changing to hand or text cursor. MacOS 14.2

This problem has been driving me crazy for a while. It is still happening in Sequoia (15.0). The mouse shape simply does not change when I hover on different things. Sometimes it changes for an instant but goes back to the black pointer. And that not only in Safari but in the whole system, all apps.

It does seem to happen only (or more often) when I'm connected to an external monitor, and like many others here, I also use a Logitech mouse (MX Master 3S) and Logi Options+, but closing it or even stopping the service in Activity Monitor does not solve the issue. It might b

I tried quitting some external software (such as ScrollReverser) but it does not fix it, so as of now I have no quick trick to fix it, that consistently works.

Really hoping this doesn't drag much longer.
 
LeeW said:
I downgraded to Ventura in March. Last week, I decided to see what had changed, so I upgraded to Sonoma again. And no issues at all, exact same apps, usage and so on. It suggests to me something is going wrong with the update for some, but not all. I hear no issues of anyone with a new device having these issues.

Maybe downgrading and doing the update again was my solution.
Click to expand...

Upgrade to Sequoia, and the issue is back. I guess it's back to Ventura.

HDFan said:
Have you logged a bug via feedback?
Click to expand...

Apple knows and has done so for a long time about this issue.
 
HDFan said:
Have you logged a bug via feedback?
Click to expand...
I have logged it.

Also, today it happened right after I opened and used the screen recording tool (via cmd+shift+5). In fact, the pointer will work as normal while I'm setting up the screen size to be captured, but it goes back to only arrow as soon as I do anything else. 🧐
 
I just got a new MacBook Pro (M3 Pro) two days ago, and I noticed the cursor bug today. It happens no matter the app. I can see a very quick 'jump' when the cursor should change, from expected one to the default arrow.

EDIT: After a reboot, it seems to be fixed. Let's see how long it stands like that..
 
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This is still happening, but one comment about an external track ball made me curious, actually I have one connected I never used, so I moved the cursor with that and voila, the pointer begins to change again according to context.

And here context is important.

I get reminders in Chrome from Google Calendar, when I get the popup I was losing cursor contextual changes as well, which meant that I could not snooze since the cursor needs to change automatically so the snoozing delays become selectable.

Another thing is that the Dock is behaving erroneously, if I use the track pad at some point Dock's icons aren't resized as I scan them with the cursor, if I do that using the external trackball instead of the laptop's trackpad the behaviour goes back to normal.

I ended on this thread looking for solutions to my Dock disappearing but not showing up automatically again as expected, I suspect that if such issue happens again my trackball may fix it.

This is really annoying.

I have 14.7.2 and all this started to happen after a recent upgrade of mayor version.
 
I just realized that the issue was introduced with a certain new "feature" that is similarly annoying: the caps lock indicator. Somehow every time the little **** pops up something breaks. So today I finally got around to disabling it which also solved the issue with the cursor.

The solution

Copy and paste the following into Terminal and confirm:

Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/UIKit.plist redesigned_text_cursor -dict-add Enabled -bool NO

Note: A reboot is required for this to take effect.

That's two birds with one stone. You're welcome.
 
janonymous said:
I just realized that the issue was introduced with a certain new "feature" that is similarly annoying: the caps lock indicator. Somehow every time the little **** pops up something breaks. So today I finally got around to disabling it which also solved the issue with the cursor.

The solution

Copy and paste the following into Terminal and confirm:

Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/UIKit.plist redesigned_text_cursor -dict-add Enabled -bool NO

Note: A reboot is required for this to take effect.

That's two birds with one stone. You're welcome.
Click to expand...

This fixed it! I could kiss u rn it's been KILLING me for like over a year. You can just Relaunch Safari from Force Quit menu instead of rebooting btw
 
RampageJoe said:
I posted a solution and more insights here:


Would be nice if some people could confirm the bug
Click to expand...
If by "executing obscure terminal commands" you're referring to my solution, I don't really see what's obscure about it. It's totally legit and, unlike all your theories, actually works while disabling yet another laughable "feature" in the process.

I'm well aware of the fact that this won't solve the root cause of the problem, but I'm tired of waiting for bug fixes from the new generation of geniuses at Apple HQ. Every now and then I have to get things done, and this one has cost far too much time and nerves already.
 
svenmany said:
Confirmed. I tested with Finder/Safari and Firefox/LittleSnitch.
Click to expand...

thanks for the info!
janonymous said:
If by "executing obscure terminal commands" you're referring to my solution, I don't really see what's obscure about it. It's totally legit and, unlike all your theories, actually works while disabling yet another laughable "feature" in the process.

I'm well aware of the fact that this won't solve the root cause of the problem, but I'm tired of waiting for bug fixes from the new generation of geniuses at Apple HQ. Every now and then I have to get things done, and this one has cost far too much time and nerves already.
Click to expand...

Haha nah
I don't mean your solution
I posted the same on reddit etc


As I mentioned in my post
I'm trying to solve this crap for at least 15h+ over the last days
I've read so many posts and comments...
Can't even count anymore

It could also be possible that multiple different hover/windowfocus bugs exist

Some people are already confirming this bug
So it seems this could be the major culprit
But I don't get any stats yet


I feel you 100%
It's a shame - Imagine you pay a sh*tload of money to fix essential bugs yourself lmao
Most extreme buyer remorse I've ever had

I even tried the apple care+ way
But a system wide bug occurs on every replacement device 🤡

Replacing a Macbook over and over again for nothing...
Nah I don't go time for this nonsense

On the other side I cannot easily refund it
Because I need a Macbook pro for work... funny isn't it?
 
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It definitely has something to do with Windows (using Mission Control and Hot Corners triggered it for me). However, I doubt it's right click-related. I did dig deeper a while ago and took some notes to narrow it down, too, but I really don't wanna go there anymore.

It's probably worth mentioning that sometimes you could actually force the cursor back to normal, as you probably know, by opening specific apps like Notes and TextExit -- for a quick fix, that is. I would even go as far as launching Numbers and typing some text into a cell if everything else failed.

It's a farce that we even have to discuss this, let alone help Apple to fix it. Are they actually using their own products, or how come bug fixes are taking years to be released these days, if at all.

In the meantime I've ditched their entire collection of native media apps like Music and TV since the wizards have rendered them useless. They have more bugs than I can count and I won't let them force their products on me after all.

Good luck on your mission!
 
One problem with bugs like these is that various bugs are all lumped together if they have something in common. In this case, it's the mouse pointer not changing. @RampageJoe's excellent study and analysis exposes one bug and makes it completely reproducible. Having something reproducible allows developers to make a fix. That fix might address the other bugs which cause the pointer to not change; it's hard to know if that would be the case.

I do know that the bug I was contending with did not relate to what @RampageJoe discovered. I fixed my bug by not running Bartender. @RampageJoe's bug is quite a bit more serious but easier to fix (if I understand correctly). Once the bug was triggered by right-clicking in a background window, my mouse pointer became seriously crippled in that window. But, switching to another application and back to the problematic one fixed it up.
 
It's happening to me since a little while: Sonoma 14.7.6, MacStudio M2, apple Magic mouse, no Bartender

Cursor disappears while writing in Safari or Mail or pointer not changing.
I didn't know it was so popular...😟
Right now I'm writing blind, cannot see the cursor on this text
Switching to Low resolution display (Apple Monitor) it's helping to get it back 😠
I have 32GB memory...
 
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