brush cursor flickering to arrow cursor

[benpren]

When painting with the paintbrush the cursor flickers between the round brush size cursor to an arrowhead.  The paintbrush continues painting as it should, but the cursor flickers constantly between the 2.  This is a visual annoyance but doesn't seem to affect performance.  Has anyone else had this happen and is there a possible fix?

I'm on Photoshop CS6 (latest updates) on 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 with OS X 10.6.8.

[Guest]

Don't know about the Mac but this is an issue with graphics driver and  Win8.  Do you have the latest version on  the OS?

[Mandhir Bhatia]

Ben,

The flickering cursor on Photoshop can be due to many reasons.

Firstly check on the MAC that all the recent updates for the MAC OS as well as PS are installed.

Try to launch the photoshop by pressing shift key to disable third party plugins and check.

Also try to press Command, Option, Shift on MAC as you click on Photoshop and reset the preferences.

Try these basic steps and let us know how that works!

Mandhir

[Chris Cox · Accepted solution]

We have seen that on MacOS 10.6.8 -- due to some third party plugins that needed to be updated, and to an older wacom driver that needed an update.

Also, make sure you have the current updates installed (13.0.3 or 13.1.1).

[benpren]

Thanks for the advice.  Here are a few more details.

This is a new install of pshop CS6, updated to the latest build for my OS (13.0.3) and no plugins were installed beyond whatever comes stock in the app.  I just installed CS6 and ran the updates and have only worked with it for 2 full days now.

I'm on the latest build of snow leopard 10.6.8.  I have not installed Mountain Lion yet.  And I have the lowly ati 2600 vid card that came with this mac.

Wacom driver was updated to the latest version the day I installed photoshop.

With that being said, could it still possibly be a stock plugin issue or help by doing a prefs reset?  I just set the prefs how I like and really don't feel I should need to dump them and do it over again since it's a new install.  Could you help narrow down what pref could even be causing a cursor flicker and I can just try changing that?

Thanks much!

[Chris Cox]

No, not a problem with the stock Photoshop plugins.

The only known causes are third party, or bugs in MacOS 10.8.

[benpren]

Some additional details.

I usually have 2 or 3 files open while I work that are not set in tabs.  They are bascially open side by side.  I turn off tabs so I can see all 3 files at once.

The brush tool flickers UNLESS I click the file's window title bar.  When I paint I hold alt/option for the eyedropper to grab a color from my other open file then continue painting on my active working file.  I found this is when the cursor flickers until I click the title bar even though it is already the active file/window.  So pshop CS6 is confused that I have open files not in tabs.

The tool's cursor only flickers when in motion.

The flicker also goes away if I seat the files in tabs.

CS4 never had this problem (I skipped cs5/5.5 so do not know if it happened in that release).

*update* I'm testing working with 3 tabs open side x side rather than 3 floating windows - will reply with outcome after some time working.

[RockyDavies]

I have been having this same exact problem but in Illustrator.  I've had it ever since I upgraded to CC at the end of December.  It has been driving me crazy.  I finally found this thread and tried clicking on the window bar to the file.  STANDING OVATION.  It worded to stop the flickering!  That has been like a rock in my shoe for months.

It is great that I can click the window bar to stop it, but what is the real problem here and how can I fix it?  I've updated everything, have no third party plug-ins or any of that.  I'd rather solve the problem than apply the band-aid.

[Bobben49]

I my flickering cursor issue in Windows and it had nothing to do with Video drivers or hardware it was the Ethernet Driver, I don't know how to do drivers or hardware disablement in OS10 but if your MAC has an ethernet port this may be an avenue to explore.

After Month of having the **% flickering cursor I finally fixed it.  In my case it was an incompatibility of the libraries module in Photoshop CC 2014 and 2015, and the Creative Cloud App with my ethernet drivers from Realtek.

My solution, 

I uninstalled my Windows 7 PCIe Realtek GBE Driver and installed the Realtek Windows 8.1 PCIe GBE Family Driver fixed everything, the flashing hourglass -gone, the Libraries module flashing -gone, Creative Cloud not installing -now installed. I was running Windows 7 Pro (64 bit) when this problem started, upgraded to Windows 10 pro (64 bit). The Windows 10 installed a NIC driver that slowed my Gigabit Ethernet card to 100mbs, so I downgraded to Windows 7 driver so problem persisted.

I don't know if this only applies to just the Windows 7 RealteK PCIe GBE Driver or if it applies to other operating systems and different ethernet chip manufacturers, but it does give you another avenue to explore.

[phthalojohan]

sorry to resurrect your 3 year old thread, but I actually encountered the SAME problem when I was trying to work 2 files with floating windows (one of the files was just a tiny 100kb jpeg), with photoshop CC 2015 on Mac Yosemite, all updates installed, latest Wacom driver installed and no3rd party plug ins on photoshop. I had thought I had brought a pretty powerful iMac (27inch retina, 16gb RAM, i7 processor, 3TB fusion drive, 2DB AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics card with an Intuos pro tablet), so I was quite surprised. This never happened on my old Windows 7 PC.

Following this thread, I tried seating my 2 largest files side by side in tabs instead of floating, and the problem doesn't seem to occured compared to when I floated the files (Although I only tested it for a few seconds). Thanks for the solution!

I guess this is an ongoing problem between apple and adobe, but at least there is a work around by using tabs instead of floating windows.

[Chris Cox]

No, Apple fixed their bug in this area years ago, and other users aren't seeing such a problem.

So you have a plugin, extension panel, application, or utility on your system causing the cursor to change.

[phthalojohan]

Aw man, not good news.

I hadn't installed any3rd party plug ins or extensions (does photoshop CC come with default plug-ins or extensions?), will google around to see if there is any apps that may cause conflict with photoshop this way.

It's not a huge problem though, just cosmetic, the features still work as they should, and plus I am quite used to working with tabs in photoshop CC (don't know why I forgot the tab thing last night, probably still trying to get my head around switching from windows to Mac).

[Kris Hunt]

I have this problem in Photoshop and Illustrator, too, so don't feel too bad. Maybe we should compare third party utility lists.

[phthalojohan]

I have a Wacom tablet, so had to install the driver for that. Also got chrome and drop box. It's a pretty new computer, so these are the main non-apple apps I downloaded (Is that what you meant by utilities?).

Following my query in another post though, I gave two solutions a try which helped the situation (although I am not sure which one):

1) Set the graphic processor to "Normal" (which really begs the question as to how powerful a computer needs to be before PS can handle "Advanced")

2) Work by having the tabs side to side, as opposed to floating.

[laurakatzdesign]

This has been bothering me in Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. I believe the problem was interference from either my scanner or my computer. I moved the tablet farther away and unplugged the scanner's USB and the flickering has stopped. Finally! Hopefully this helps someone. This was the most annoying problem ever.

[Christine Holzmann · Accepted solution]

This flickering cursor has been driving me CRAZY The flickering ONLY happens in Adobe programs (Acrobat, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop) and I ALSO have the flickering cursor with my Apple Trackpad. There are NO flickering issues on any other programs outside of the Adobe suite. Even trying to use the Pen tool in InDesign is SO difficult...because of the flickering cursor...it keeps changing back and forth from the pen tool to the arrowhead, making it very difficult to work. I am on a new iMac and had the same issues with my older iMac.

**update**

I read this tip in another forum and it worked for me! Choosing to HIDE Photoshop stopped the flickering in all of the other Adobe programs. VERY strange but it worked!

[tinon3452389]

Thanks Ciellana, your tip works!!

[BeeP]

OMG Celiana thats done the trick! been having this issue for months now with no real solution –My issue was in Ps and not other software, I hid AI and the brush works perfect in Ps again.

Thanks for this - Adobe pls fix these silly annoying issues!

[robh68487936]

THAT WORKS!! Except, I use SketchbookPro AND Photoshop. It sucks to have to hide Photoshop while I paint in Sketchbook but THANKS!!

[stuarta19825123]

Yep, hiding Photoshop did the trick. Turned it to "Show" and the flickering returned. So, perhaps PS taking too much RAM in the background? Interesting that the earlier posts by staff did not address that solution... Thanks, Ciellana!

[EdgeMotion · Accepted solution]

I was experiencing this problem with the latest version of Photoshop (21.1.1) running on MacOS (10.15.4). I finally figured out that auto-activation in the font management app RightFont (5.8.4) was the culprit. After disabling auto-activation of fonts for Photoshop, the problem went away. Anyone experiencing this problem may want to disable auto-activation in their 3rd-party font management app to see if that is the cause. You may also try disabling the app entirely if the first step doesn't do it. Ultimately, it seems third-party extensions and apps are the root cause for the cursor flicker. You just need to figure out which. Hope this helps!

[Molnfab]

Yes! Thank you.

[ApplePiDesign · Accepted solution]

The newly installed Suitcase Fusion 2 extension also caused the eraser or brush cursor to flicker, making it very hard to use accurately! Uninstalling the Suitcase Fusion 2 plug in fixed the issue. Thank You!

[john browning]

Thank you! That saved me a lot of time and trouble, though I'm also disappointed that the problem doesn't seem to be fixed nearly a year later.

[owghh]

Still a problem as of August 17, 2022!