Flickering cursor in Photoshop in MacOS Sonoma

[jay-be-sleep-smart]

I know this has been reported before but its still not fixed. The very latest version of Photoshop 25.4 in MacOS Sonoma 14.3.1 all up-to-date as of Feb 13th 2024 the cursor in Photoshop after a time begins to flicker not matter which tool you use. So for example if you select the brush tool the cursor will flicker from the brush tool to move tool and just generally ficker on / off. The only way to stop this is to restart the Mac not just the app. 

Besides this Photoshop also affects the mouse cursor in the OS. In any web browser when you hover over a link you no longer see the hand picker cursor the cursor just remains on the arrow.

MacOS is such a stable, beautiful OS and this kind of behaviour has no place on the platform. When I don't use Photoshop I restart my Mac about once every 2 months as I have zero issues. 

Adobe can you please address this issue, I know I'm not alone in experiencing it. Pixelmator doesn't do this and it costs a fraction of the price of Photoshop. 

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@jay-be-sleep-smart this is a Mac OS issue. Photoshop cannot affect the cursor outside of the application.

Check your cursor settings in System Settings>Accesibility>Display>Pointer>Pointer Size.

Make sure it is "normal".

[jay-be-sleep-smart]

It's not normal so I will try this. I just find I only see this in the OS when I've been using Photoshop. Anyway thanks for the tip, I'll try it and report back. 

[jay-be-sleep-smart]

I have tried this and it didn't work. After about an hour the cursor started jumping again. 

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@jay-be-sleep-smart did you restart the Mac after adjusting the setting?

[Lumigraphics]

I'm seeing this for the first time, painting cursors flickering, replaced with an arrow when painting. Doesn't affect anything except Photoshop. Haven't seen it before on multiple Windows and Mac machines. This on a 2019 16" MacBook Pro Intel with Radeon Pro 5300M which has actually been rock solid.

[Robert25221699migv]

This bug has been in Photoshop since at least 2011. I have reported it myself multiple times on this very forum across the many years it has annoyed me.  Adobe isn't interested in fixing it because they blame Apple, who also won't fix it because they blame Adobe. The good news is Affinity Designer is 50% off right now and does not have this bug.

[JeanJacketSmackitMaster]

I'm having trouble believing this is simply a Mac OS issue, because it *only* occurs with Photoshop. I might be convinced the issue is with both sides, but how is it possible that absolutely no other application has this issue? It doesn't happen immediately, only after it's been open for a while and more quickly when Photoshop and Illustrator are running concurrently. The flickering happens immediately when transforming a smart object. This issue can affect the cursor in other software once it's started and even in Finder. The only fix is to quit Photoshop.

That said, I do admit that I've had other issues with my GPU on my M3 Pro, especially after updating to Sonoma 14.4 (now on 14.5 but the 14.4 is where the bulk of them occured). But even before that I had performance issues in Adobe Illustrator on top of the cursor issues in Photoshop. No other application seems to be affected.

I understand this is a community forum, but I'm adding my voice in case it helps add weight to this issue and for Adobe to up the priority level toward finding a fix. Surely Adobe has to work closely with Apple to develop for their OS. I'm not confident it will ever be addressed, seeing as another commenter has expressed experiencing this issue since 2010. It's both perplexing and frustrating that Adobe runs better on Windows machines since its original software came to life on a Macintosh.

[Robert25221699migv]

Agreed, still dealing with this issue in October 2024. It has vexed me for over a decade.