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jeromea13244388
jeromea13244388
Inspiring
April 22, 2023
Question

Brush flickering to curosr arrow

  • April 22, 2023
  • 11 replies
  • 2408 views

Reposting this bug because the first post has been merged with another unrelated bug report. https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-bugs/p-brush-outline-circle-disappearing-when-working-with-masks/idi-p/12570028/page/4#comments ) : since Photoshop 24.1, the brush cursor is flickering as if there is some lag/buffer when I'm drawing. Usually when i draw small lines rapidly (like hatchings, to give you the idea). The usual cursor of the brush shape disappears during one 10th of second or 1 second and turns to the normal white arrow mouse cursor. I signal this bug because it doesn't seem to happen on Photoshop 23.5.3 that  i have also installed on my computer.

Both versions are up to date and I checked the same performance settings on both.

I'm on Windows 11 and my graphic card is an NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3070.

It looks like that (not my video but it looks exactly like this bug) : https://www.reddit.com/r/wacom/comments/fxryv6/brush_or_other_brushlike_tool_changing_to_cursor/
This bug has not been corrected since. I'm currently working on Photoshop 24.0.
In 24.4.1 the bug is still here and there is even a bug with the shadow behind the floating canvas flickering with each stroke of brush.

    11 replies

    Dr Kees
    Participating Frequently
    August 7, 2026

    I’m on Photoshop 27.9.1. Started to have this problem on a Macbook Pro M4 with Tahoe. After trying all the suggested solutions by changing settings in Photoshop, it turns out having Microsoft Word open in the background was the problem! Closed Microsoft Word (wish I could close it forever) and problems are gone.

    hiroki_0820
    hiroki_0820
    Participating Frequently
    June 22, 2024

    I am also suffering from this bug.

     

    The current latest version v25.91 still has no fix.

    This bug occurs on a daily basis.
    But it occurs more frequently, especially immediately after using a layer mask.
    Please refer to the reference video.

     

    Some people say that Photoshop 2022 is fine, but in my case Photoshop 2022 behaves the same way.

    It is very inconvenient and I sincerely hope it will be fixed.

    hiroki_0820
    hiroki_0820
    Participating Frequently
    September 21, 2026

    Solved: Disabling “Enable Generator” fixed the brush cursor flickering to the Windows arrow

    I believe I have finally identified the cause of this issue, at least in my environment.

    Solution

    Go to:

    Preferences > Plugins > uncheck “Enable Generator”

    After disabling Generator, the cursor flickering completely stopped.

    I was also able to reproduce the issue consistently:

    Generator OFF → No flickering
    Generator ON → Flickering occurs
    Generator OFF again → Flickering disappears

    The problem was especially noticeable when painting on or working with layers that had pixel layer masks enabled. The brush cursor would briefly change to the standard Windows arrow while painting.

    How I found the cause

    I had been experiencing this issue for a long time and tested many possible causes, including GPU acceleration, OpenCL, GPU compositing, cache levels, cache tile size, document resolution, number of layers, and various layer mask settings.

    Some settings, particularly Cache Levels, seemed to affect how frequently the flickering occurred, but none of them were the root cause. The issue could also occur with GPU acceleration completely disabled.

    Eventually, I replaced my current Photoshop settings folder with a backup from a time when the problem was not occurring. The flickering disappeared completely, even in a large working document.

    I then compared the working and problematic preference files and narrowed the difference down to MachinePrefs.psp.

    Replacing only the working MachinePrefs.psp with the problematic version immediately brought the flickering back.

    Comparing the settings stored in the two files revealed this difference:

    Working: generatorEnabled = OFF
    Problematic: generatorEnabled = ON

    I then tested this directly in Photoshop by changing only the Enable Generator option. Turning it ON caused the problem, and turning it OFF fixed it again.

    I had actually enabled Generator recently because I needed to use Photoshop’s image asset generation feature, but I had completely forgotten about changing this setting.

    So, if you are experiencing a similar issue where the brush cursor briefly flickers to the Windows arrow—especially when working with layer masks—I strongly recommend trying:

    Preferences > Plugins > Disable “Enable Generator”

    This may not be the cause of every cursor-flickering issue, but in my case the Generator setting was reproducibly responsible for it.

    Riverforged
    Riverforged
    Participating Frequently
    June 7, 2024

    full time concept artist running a high-end windows 10 PC. Constant flickering of the cursor between photoshop brush cursors and Windows arrow cursor while using brush tool in photoshop (Adobe Photoshop Version: 23.2.2 20220304.r.325 49bf0ec x64). This issue occurs with the brush shape cursor, or the precision cursor style shown with Caps-Lock turned on - both flash constantly to my Windows arrow while painting.

    Intel Core i9-12900k 12th Gen Alder Lake 16-Core 3.2 GHz
    32 GB DDR4 3600 RAM
    NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12GB GDDR6X

    StudioIyk
    Participant
    May 31, 2024

    Try this as it worked for me. If you use and have Google Chrome open, quit and reopen it. This stopped my cursor from flickering. Not sure if other browsers impact it the same. 

     

      jeromea13244388
      jeromea13244388Author
      Inspiring
      May 31, 2024

      Hi, I'm on Firefox and browser open or not, it happens anyway. It happens less frequently since 2 or 3 photoshop upgrades now, though, proof that it has something to do with the software architecture.

      InfiniteWhale
      Known Participant
      March 14, 2024

      I've got this on my m2 mac in 2024.  I googled for help and there are people complaining about this since 2012.  Adobe really is a disgrace

        Trevor.Dennis
        Community Expert
        Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        October 5, 2023

        Oh wow!  That would annoy the heck out of me. Can you use the beta version or V24 while waiting?  That has to be totally unuable as it is!

          Jqqerry
          Jqqerry
          Inspiring
          October 5, 2023

          @Trevor.Dennis 

          24.0.1 was effective for me. Some users experienced that bug throughout Photosap 2023 and even seemed to have some improvements at 24.7,25.0, but it actually got much the same or worse.
          To avoid that bug more safely, use Photoshop 2022 and there's no such brush cursor bug...

          Ellen Jaskol
          Participant
          October 4, 2023

          I'm having the same problem.  Photoshop 2024.  Mac desktop.  

           

            Jqqerry
            Jqqerry
            Inspiring
            April 22, 2023

            This is a bug that must be fixed. Some users have reported that they are experiencing it on macos as well.
            This is a bug that has been reported a lot in several communities, including Reddit, as well as the official community of Adobe. Please do not move this to the Discussions tab or merge with other unrelated threads.

            This is a bug that occurs not only when using the brush but also clone stamp, and it is an independent bug that has nothing to do with the presence or absence of a layer or mask.

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