P: CS4, CS5, CS6, CC: Cursor disappears on Mountain Lion (MacOS 10.8)

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

My cursor keeps disappearing with CS4 and CS5. This started after I installed Mountain Lion. I have noticed this on 2 different iMacs, one at home and one at work.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Apple has investigated, but cannot reproduce the problem.
Adobe cares, but we cannot do anything about an Apple OS bug that affects all applications on MacOS. We have given Apple the evidence in a bug report and asked them to fix it - now it is up to Apple to fix the OS bug.

No, I doubt that Apple will discount their OS for the bugs they have left unfixed.

[Guest]

Chris, you obviously have a very good idea what area of the OS and its interaction with third party applications/drivers is causing this issue and I think we all understand that you are not at liberty to describe that directly with us. Would it be possible to list some of the strategies suggested on here that will NOT fix it, it seems that a huge amount of production time is being wasted by users desperate to fix this annoying issue by re-installing OS's, removing Flash, levelling drives etc. Is that allowed? Obviously you could just say that nothing works, so I guess this is a pointless question, but maybe you can cast some light on this by omission as you seem to be the only person with real technical knowledge of the problem.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I really don't know. Yes, I have some idea where the bug must exist in the OS code -- but I don't know why a clean OS install makes it less common (or go away) for some users.

We don't know exactly what makes the cursor disappear, reappear, or what user steps might make the problem go away. (zap the PRAM, sacrifice an 8" floppy, howl at the moon - who knows :-)

I've got a MacMini at home with a clean 10.8 install -- and the cursor disappears pretty often in Safari (but never in Photoshop, oddly enough). It just doesn't happen often enough that I could demonstrate the problem to someone else. Apple really needs a reproducible case so they can figure out what causes the cursor to disappear.

And quite a few engineers have been looking at this -- I'm just the only one who spends time answering customer questions.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Chris... The disappearing cursor thing happens all day, every day, using Photoshop. I am a professional Illustrator, this has been a huge annoyance. (I know its not your fault, personally, btw : ) ) I just wish I could fix it...it really slows me down. Happens every few minutes, especially larger brush sizes.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

If it is that repeatable - please let Apple know. They need to find repeatable cases so they can figure out the cause.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Chris - So, basic naive question: Where/How do I report it to Apple, so that someone actually reads/deals with this? Thanks.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Apple has some long topics in their forums about disappearing cursors.

Beyond that, email ccox (at) adobe (dot) com, and I'll see if we can add your contact information to the bug report with Apple.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I've had this problem since the day I was stupid enough to download ML. My cursor has disappeared so many times in PS CS5 and also on Facebook's Bejeweled Blitz game. The cursor would "hide" behind certain graphics as if they were in 3D. It got to the point that I got so frustrated, I was ready to throw this mac out the window and go back to a Windows OS. Somewhere along the line, someone suggested making the cursor bigger. My own preference has always been to have a cursor that's on the small side, but out of desperation, I figured I had nothing to lose. I went into system preference> accessibility> display> and then adjusted the cursor size two stops from the right. So far, in two days, I haven't lost the cursor once. I don't know if this an official cure or if I just got lucky, but like me...you have nothing to lose by trying. Good luck.

[RayStof]

Thanks! I will try to do this too. I have another possible solution, I noticed most issues are with ATI cards and their drivers.

I bought a NVidia GTX680 for my MacPro to replace the ATI5770 that was in there before. After the switch I rarely have a disappearing cursor. It still happens but now once every few days instead of several times per minute!!

Unfortunately this is a 550€ fix! To me that is really worth it.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

On a Mac when in the brush tool the cursor will disappear. Constantly have to click over to the finder and back into Photoshop to get the cursor back. Seems to only do this with the brush tool.

Using Photoshop CC & CS6 occurs in both.
OSX 10.8.4

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I am using Photoshop CS6, on Mac OS 10.8.4
I work on large files (1-2BG) often and my cursor keeps disappearing! The program doesn't freeze, and I can save, but I can't do anything without seeing the cursor. Happens all the time lately, andy solutions would be appreciated, thanks!

[daydreamdoodles]

Since I updated Photoshop CC to the latest update (14.1.2), I've had to force quit three times in the last few days due to my cursor disappearing - not sure if this is related but it never happened prior to updating. Thought I should mention it anyway in case it was a bug.

[Venture1]

We have four brand new iMacs with nothing but the latest version of OS X Mountain Lion, Wacom's latest Intuos driver, latest versions of Adobe Photoshop CC and Bridge installed.

I also have my own MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion, and I'm using an Intuos 5 and an old Bamboo Fun tablet, both which have the latest drivers. I also have Photoshop CS6 and CC installed on this machine. I also had Lion before Mountain Lion and the problem existed even there.

The cursor consistently, regularly, and often disappears, multiple times a day, on all four iMacs and my MacBook Pro, in Photoshop CS6 and CC when using our Wacom Intuos 4, Intuos 5 or Bamboo Fun tablet. The cursor never, ever, disappears outside of Photoshop.

The cursor tends to disappear after I press and release the Pan/Scroll button on the Wacom pens, not every time, but when I catch it disappearing, then I notice that I was just pressing the pan button. The "panning hand" photoshop cursor does not disappear at that point, but releasing the button sometimes causes the brush/other tool cursor to be invisible. It comes back if I go to Mission Control and back into Photoshop. But it's annoying.

This bug was not present in Photoshop CS5, and appeared in CS6 and is still there in CC.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The cursor disappearing is a MacOS issue that affects all applications, and got significantly worse on MacOS 10.8 than in previous OS versions.

Apple is very much aware of this issue in their OS.

And many users of the MacOS 10.9 beta have stated that they haven't seen the cursor disappear while using the 10.9 beta.

[Venture1]

Hmm... It's possible then, that I'm seeing a different issue, since I've never seen my cursor disappears anywhere other then in Photoshop. Is it possible that this is something else?

It just happened again and I got to have a better look at it, so here's a correction of what I wrote: when pressing the hand/pan button on my Wacom pen, the hand cursor should appear, but instead the cursor just disappears sometimes. Releasing the button then makes the previous tool's cursor reappear, but mousing over the layers palette makes the cursor disappear again. So it's only the "hand" cursor and the "pointing hand" cursor (the one that comes up when you hover over a layer's name) that disappears, and nothing else as far as I can tell.

Sorry if this is indeed the OS X issue that you mention, but my symptoms seem a little different, so just in case...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

No, it just means you use Photoshop more :-)

And it would be difficult to diagnose any addition cursor problems, because of the widely discussed Apple issue with disappearing cursors.

[Michael_Lande]

Same here. I can't remember which version of Photoshop this started in. I'm using Photoshop CC now and Wacom Intuos 5 touch. Found this forum looking for a fix. My work around is switching applications and then switching right back to Photoshop. Apple Tab and Apple Tab again over and over all day long.

[J453]

Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks corrects this problem where the cursor would disappear in various applications, including Photoshop.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

My cursor vanishes quite frecuently, the only solution I ́ve came around is to swipe the pointing device from corner to corner in your screen. It shouldn ́t happen in the first place. Any ideas?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I've been working with some files larger than 800MB lately and started noticing a problem as soon as I upgraded to OS X 10.8.
The curser blinks and flashes uncontrollably shortly after I "undo" a command. At this point, if I move the curser over a panel, instead of turning into the pointing finger icon, it just disappears. To make the pointer visible I have to go to the OS desktop or another application than return to Photoshop with the pointer on a panel.

My setup: Macbook pro (early 2011), OS X 10.8, 8GB RAM, dual display set-up, wacom tablet, Photoshop 12.0.4

[Goremaster]

I am running Photoshop 5 and I just upgraded to Mountain Lion on my Mac. The curser disappears if I use the fast brush size short cut (option control & click). I then need to switch to a different program and switch back to get it to reappear again. This is very distracting and makes it hard to keep a fast work flow. I'm on an iMac running an ATI 4850 512mb card. i7 2.8 mhz.

I would like to be contacted when this issue is resolved. I also see it hasn't been fixed for PS 6 either as I have seen forum posts on Apple's website about this issue.

[efficient_painter16B8]

Thanks Jeffrey! I just upgraded to Mavericks, after several months of workarounds in Mountain Lion. So far, my cursors, and all brushes, are finally back to normal.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Just got the brand new MacBook Pro with Retina Display and Maverick ... I rolled over CS4 and CS5 and managed to get CS6 (not the flippin' cloud). All are now installed on the new laptop. And ALL ... ALL ... are having problems with the curser. To be clear, I want to use the "normal brush tip ... show crosshairs" ... and I'm periodically and frequently getting the "precise" ... (which must have been named by someone with a very bad sense of humor). I'm not laughing. So, anyhow ... it's not solved in 10.9.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This topic was bout the cursor disappearing. Your problem sounds like you're just hitting caps lock and forgetting about it, or using really small brushes and getting the crosshairs. It is also possible that some other utility you are running is changing cursors - but we don't know what else you might be running.

Apple says that they fixed the cursor disappearing bugs in MacOS 10.9, and so far everyone else seems to see the cursors working correctly on MacOS 10.9.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Chris, thanks for the quick response ... next time it happens I'll check to see what else is running. Pretty sure the caps lock wasn't hit, but I'll be on the lookout for that as well. As to the small size brushes, I do a lot of work practically pixel by pixel, but even enlarging the brush size doesn't make it stop. Thanks again, and I'll try to be more aware of what else is going on and keep you posted.