P: Spot Removal Cursor Not Visible

[MacBrown]

iMac at OS10.15.3 and LR Classic at 9.2 Develop Module: The spot removal cursor disappears when it is positioned on the actual image meaning that I cannot see where the spot removal is going to take place on the image. Resetting prefs, graphics card off or on, uninstall/reinstall does not change the behavior. The spot removal tool works perfectly on separate test catalogs built using 9.1 and 8.21. Adobe Support has done 3 remote sessions and not fixed the problem. I think this is a bug in 9.2. Does anyone have a solution?

[simonsaith]

Rikk's question was: do you experience the same disappearing cursor issue if you explicitly turn off the second monitor by toggling off the second display control shown in Rikk's screen cap?

[MacBrown]

I think we may have found something here. As I noted earlier I have 2 physical monitors: Mac 5K Retina and Apple Thunderbolt. I decided to look carefully at the combinations of where the main LR screen was located and whether or not the LR secondary screen was active or not. I’m running LR 9.2.1 on MacOS 10.15.4. Here are the results:

1. I brought up a catalog on the Retina without the LR secondary screen active. Spot Removal tool cursor not visible. 
2. I brought up a catalog on the Retina with the LR secondary active on the Thunderbolt. Spot removal tool not visible.
3. I brought up a catalog on the Thunderbolt without the LR secondary screen active. Spot Removal tool cursor visible and stayed visible on successive spot removal operations. However, there was a visible lag between a spot removal operation completing and the cursor becoming visible again - in the order of a second or slightly more.
4. I activated the LR secondary screen on the Retina with LR primary on the Thunderbolt and the Spot Removal tool cursor continued to operate correctly (as in point 3) but still with noticeable lag.
5. I brought up a catalog log on the Retina again and the Spot Removal tool cursor was not visible with or without the secondary LR screen active.
6. I wondered what would happen if I disconnected the Thunderbolt. Would the Spot Removal tool work as expected? Yes it did! It did not matter whether I had the LR secondary screen active or not (both on the Retina). And there was no visible lag.
7. To complete the cycle, I plugged the Thunderbolt back into the Mac. The Spot Removal tool cursor now operated correctly on the Retina with or without the LR secondary screen active. Disconnecting the Thunderbolt and reconnecting it appears to have reset something in the Thunderbolt, Mac OS, or LR. There was no visible lag.
8. This disconnect/reconnect seems to have fixed another irritant related to two physical displays and LR. On my Mac, when I created a keyword, exported something, or did anything that brought up a secondary dialog box, the box ALWAYS appeared on the Thunderbolt. Since I disconnected and reconnected the Thunderbolt, the secondary dialog appears on the display that last had focus with the macOS. The Mac now works the same as my other machine always has.

So this issue has been about the secondary physical display (not the LR secondary screen) and how it works with the MacOS and LR. I would appreciate your thoughts.

[thada11234576]

I am not using the 2nd monitor feature. I simply have Lightroom running on my second monitor. I tried enabling the 2nd monitor feature with no difference. As soon as I move my main Lightroom window to my built-in macbook monitor, it works fine. When I move the window back to my 2nd monitor, the spot removal tool shows up the first time, but then disappears again. 

[simonsaith]

Thank you for the thoroughness in trying out these different scenarios. The team now has some leads to follow up on.

Best

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Great clues - thanks for the detailed description. 

[Venkatesh Penjuri]

Hi Eric Brown, thank you for the detailed explanation. I have tried multiple scenarios with an extra monitor connected(Lr on the retina display and nothing on the secondary monitor) but I am not able to reproduce this issue. I feel I am missing out something here. Could you record a video and share with us. I want to ensure I am doing the same thing as you are. 

[MacBrown]

I would be happy to try doing that. How do you suggest I make a movie? I have tried the Spot Removal tool on an iMac Pro Andy LG 5K monitor purchased from Apple and I did not have a problem with that configuration. This might be a Thunderbolt Display issue. After I did the analysis above, the cursor worked. However, when I shut down and restarted the Mac (which I do every night), I had lost the cursor again. Anyway, let me know how to make the movie for you. 

[thada11234576]

Hey all, I just found the solution for the problem, at least on my MacBook. I use multiple desktops/workspaces on my Mac and had previously set the macOS Desktop setting so that Lightroom always opened up in my 'second' desktop/workspace on my main monitor (the MacBook built-in retina). For whatever reason, I randomly thought of it and decided to remove that setting, after which my Spot Removal tool works perfectly, as expected, over and over again. I'm curious to see if this helps anyone else. Good luck. 
I simply right-clicked on the Lightroom logo, went to 'Options' and selected 'None'. 

[Venkatesh Penjuri]

You can use any screen recording tool, just ensure the whole Lightroom window is captured. Please upload the video to a cloud storage service and share the link with us.

[Venkatesh Penjuri]

Thank you thaddeusa, I am able to reproduce the issue by changing the desktop from the options.

[Venkatesh Penjuri]

Eric Brown Does the above steps mentioned by thaddeusa help in your case? 

[MacBrown]

I tried this out and the Spot Removal cursor appeared and worked as normal. Changing the Assign to Option also fixed the other irritant that I mentioned about the dialog boxes always appearing on the second display. I set the Option to None and everything working. However,  I have a couple questions about the Options. Firstly, how did it get set Desktop on Display 2 in the first place when I was not aware that it even existed? Secondly, I have an iMac Pro with and LG 5K monitor attached. I did not have the Spot Removal cursor issue on that system but I do not have an Assign to Desktop section in the LR Options menu. What would that be? This is for the sake of curiosity since my iMac is fixed and everything works. Thanks to thaddeusa for finding it. Thanks to all for trying to solve the problem.

[Venkatesh Penjuri]

We would like to invite you to test this issue in a different forum.  If you are willing to participate respond to this post and you will be contacted via Email.

[MacBrown]

I’d be happy to test a fix.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Venkatesh, Eric, thaddeusa:

I discovered the very same problem today.  Drove me crazy. In Develop - Spot Heal Brush mode, the selection circle was invisible.  I use two monitors, and had dragged Lightroom from #1 to #2 earlier in the day. After reading your experience, I dragged it back to Monitor #1.  That worked!  Then to test, I moved it back to #2. Cursor disappeared.  So then I followed thaddeusa's idea, and selected [Options: None] and it worked!  On both sides.  Then tried [Options: All Desktops] and it worked on both monitors as well.

If [Options: All Desktops] or [Options: None] are selected, no problem, cursor visible.

But if one selects [Options: Desktop on Display 1] and then later drags Lightroom to Display 2, the Spot Heal selection circe will disappear, and vice versa if Display 2 is selected and Lightroom is moved to Display 1.

So this new behaviour started as a result of some recent update.


Mac Pro 2019 Catalina v 10.15.4
3.2 Ghz 16-core Intel Xeon
768 GB 2933 MHZ DDR4
AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32GB
8TB SSD
2 Thunderbolt 27" Displays
Lightroom Classic 9.2.1

[COBill]

I see you're on a Mac but a fix on Windows for various Lightroom display problems is to display full screen. And for moving between monitors: drop down from full screen on the source monitor, drag until it fully fits on the target monitor and then go full screen.  
  

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Version 9.3, an update to Lightroom Classic, went live on June 15, 2020 and contains a fix for this issue. Please install the update and respond back if it does not cure the issue for you. Thank you for your patience!

[carolg39423085]

I am having the same issue tonight with the spot removal tool. It wont display the cursor on the image. I have images I edited earlier this week in the same session and when I click spot tool when those are up it will highlight where the tool was used but will not show to be used to do a new spot removal. Is there a known fix for this yet?

[carolg39423085]

same issue here tonight. Any fix yet?

[carolg39423085]

Any fix for a single use monitor with the same issue? I only use one and have this issue...

[carolg39423085]

@Rikk Hi,

I am experiencing this tonight and it is well past the update. Any advice on what to do? 

[Mark22144399wrkx]

Fixed it for me!

[Simon22727804zqan]

I am now having this issue, It worked well before the update, Im only on a single monitor so the suggested fix wont work. any Ideas? I have a huge amount of quick edits coming up soon and this wont do at all.

[Simon22727804zqan]

Same is happening on the red eye tool 

[Julie24251942k9vx]

• Yes! That worked for me in Windows. Thank you! Occam's razor FTW