Cursor disappears when using a brush (Arrow)

[Jqqerry]

I've reported this many times, and many people report it, but it gets moved from the Bugs tab to the Discussion tab, or merged into the wrong, completely unrelated bug thread, and never gets fixed.

This is an independent bug that is completely unrelated to layermasks/panels.
Please do not merge it into another thread.


Occurs in Photoshop 24.0 and later. (Some users also experience this bug in 24.0 and use 2022 instead of 2023 to resolve it)

The cursor should be visible while using the brush.
However, the cursor disappears and turns into the default mouse arrow.
And it stays that way until you stop rubbing the brush on the tablet or mouse.

Take a look at the video I attached.
One is what I recorded the other day, and the other is what another user recorded on reddit. The video on reddit is longer and better expresses the pain we're experiencing.

(What we=user know so far)

1. This bug occurs when "painting" a brush.

2. Most people who have experienced this bug use a Wacom.

3. This happens not only with brushes, but also with healing brushes and clone stamps.

4. This is said to occur not only in Windows OS but also in Mac OS.

5. This has nothing to do with the currently open panel, layer mask, or anything else.

6. I tried all the options currently available to the user in Photoshop, including disabling the native canvas, and none of them had anything to do with it.

7. Not sure about 24.0. It works for me, but the
It's pre-2022 Photoshops that are really risking everything and not experiencing this bug 100% of the time. I have never experienced this bug before this year.

(Why this bug needs to be fixed)

I think Photoshop's identity is all about moving the cursor and utilizing it.

And for the last decade or so, this has been exactly what we've been doing.

But right now, as in the video, we don't know the exact range and have to either break the brush unnecessarily, or estimate it sensually.

As a professional who uses brushes a lot, I was unable to use any builds after 24.0 until this bug was fixed.
A lot of features have been improved, bugs have been fixed, but the presence of some other bugs has not hindered my work.
But this essentially stops all my workflows before they even start.

[janemii]

I still can't believe this hasn't been fixed. =(

[Jqqerry]

@janemii I don't think it's included in the list of amendments. (When I saw it merged into another bug thread that was totally unrelated before)....

[Matcha_Latte19]

I sadly had to cancel my plan because I stopped using Photoshop because of this bug, it's so annoying to draw with it and there's no fix.

I use a XP Pen Deco but also had issues with my Wacom Intuos (which is also why I bought a new tablet, I  first thought the issue was Wacom but seems like it's Adobe) I'm sure there's something wrong, otherwise we wouldn't be experiencing this at the same time. 

As you said, and I can comfirm it as well, this did NOT happen last year, for me at least it started at the beggining of this year, around February/March, it started on CC19 then I moved to CC21 and it stopped, also tried older ver. and did not had this bug, after a while since the newer ver. were too heavy I went back to CC19 and the bug was gone, it started happening again around April/May, drivers are all updated, Windows also updated, but this seems like its not relate to it. 

For me it's weird how this bug appeared then later disappeared just to comeback again, I can't really tell what it is but the problem is ONLY with Photoshop.

Something I would like to add, I tried to download a non-legal ver. of Photoshop ( I've seen many people say there are no bugs on these ver. so I went to try it out) to see if the problem was related to any Adobe program I had (I uninstalled all of them) and the answer? the bug is STILL there somehow, I really can't put my finger on what's going on. Currently I'm using Clip Studio to draw, but sadly it's not the same as Photoshop, some brushes don't work the same and it's truly a pain but I'll try to get over it for now.

[Matcha_Latte19]

(Sorry for the double post)

While searching on Twitter, I found people complaining about this bug for YEARS, I even found a tweet by Kyle Webster from 2012 about this bug, seems like this is a common issue with Photoshop, someone even mentioned this bug is an old one and has been there since CS6 

I think while some are affected, some aren't, I follow alot of artists who still use Photoshop, also watch some art streams and I don't see them having any of these issues.. 

[Jqqerry]

@Matcha_Latte19 At least me, my teammates, and other retouchers I know have never experienced this bug before 24.0.

[Fie30437030mvob]

This bug was not fixed in Photoshop 24.5. Adobe doesn't seem to take this bug seriously.

[Fie30437030mvob]

I alternate between using a Wacom Intuos and a mouse on my Windows PC.

And a very stable version for me that definitely didn't have this bug was Photoshop 2022...

[Matcha_Latte19]

Since I canceled my plan I decided to get the free trial and downloaded an older ver. of the NVIDIA driver from December 2022 and I have yet to have any issues with my cursor turning into an arrow, when I thought it was flickering it was actually just me being paranoid, but it's good, been drawing for a few hours and no issues so far, it just sucks that I had to go to an older driver to temporarily get rid of this, also doesn't explain why people on Mac also have this issue

[Jqqerry]

@Matcha_Latte19  What's your driver version? I'm using a downgrade from the latest driver. (531.41 Studio Driver)
I was surprised to see this happen on Mac OS, as I thought it was a compatibility issue between Adobe and Windows OS only.

@Fie30437030mvob Stay strong. That's why I've been testing this bug with every new release of 2023, ruthlessly deleting and downgrading if it doesn't work. Adobe has been doing a lot of feature additions and updates (24.7 including the beta), but it seems like this is not being considered at all, and now even Adobe employees are not responding to threads about it.

[Matcha_Latte19]

@Jqqerry 527.56 GeForce Game Ready! I thought it was worth a try because I remember this bug started happening around February-March, I admit I should've tried this earlier but better late than never. 

[hiroki_0820]

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.

There are many people who do not seem to have this problem, so I do not expect a fix, but I am writing this just in case it will help to fix the bug.

I hope that this bug will be fixed because I want to continue using Photoshop in the future.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[hiroki_0820]

See also the reference video.
The reproducibility is very high, and the same behavior occurs even after reinstalling or changing versions.

[breadleyy]

I'm late to the party. For those who have this issue by default, it's most likely your PC being too slow for Photoshop's poor optimization. Reverting to older versions is likely to fix your problem.

For those who have this issue upon creating a layer mask, click on the burger menu in the layer panel, go to Panel Option, Thumbnail Content and select Entire Document.

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