mouse cursor disappears when hovering clickable item

[lockwoodlo]

My ATI video card died so I reverted to the built in video (VIA) of the motherboard (Broadcom).  Had no difficulty with the change, because PCLOS did everything automatically.  However, now the cursor of my Logitech optical USB mouse disappears when I hover any clickable item.  Sometimes it happens as soon as the cursor enters the area, other times it happens only when a tooltip pops up.  Strangely, there was no such problem with the failing ATI card installed.

Upon suggestion, I have changed the cursor theme, but to no avail.  Also I don't have "unclutter" installed, so that is not the problem.  I was going to add a post to an earlier thread on this forum concerning a similar problem, but was advised that, since the thread was old, it might be better to start a new topic.

Any ideas?

[trevatxtal]

Hello Lockwoodlo
I have had the same problem on two of my machines, different mother boards and video chips. It was most upsetting.
I found that disabling PclinuxOs Control Center / Hardware / Configure Video Card  / options / enable hardware accelerated mouse pointer.
solved the problem for now.
I do not know if this is a fault perhaps a more knowledgeable person can help us.
  Trev

[davey]

Same problem on my partner's older machine. The most recent updates seem to have messed up a lot of things, including printing on that machine, but not on my newer/better one. Maybe PCLOS no longer is the goto OS for older machines.

[Rudge]

Same problem on my partner's older machine. The most recent updates seem to have messed up a lot of things, including printing on that machine, but not on my newer/better one. Maybe PCLOS no longer is the goto OS for older machines.

davey, I feel I must comment on your statement, PCLinuxOS is and has always been a "state of the art" OS as far as I know. 

[davey]

Rudge, I agree. That's why recent problems with cursor, printing, and a few minor issues is so disappointing. If you look over the forum, you'll see that recent updates seem to have caused problems on some machines, not others. Since all is well on my newer/better machine and my partner's older/limited machine has developed problems, it seems reasonable to wonder whether PCLOS (or maybe just the KDE version?) is no longer the choice for underpowered computers.

[Rudge]

Rudge, I agree. That's why recent problems with cursor, printing, and a few minor issues is so disappointing. If you look over the forum, you'll see that recent updates seem to have caused problems on some machines, not others. Since all is well on my newer/better machine and my partner's older/limited machine has developed problems, it seems reasonable to wonder whether PCLOS (or maybe just the KDE version?) is no longer the choice for underpowered computers.

I have never considered it a "good" choice for older hardware. I run the LXDE desktop on hardware older than 5 years.

(in fact, I run LXDE on my current box as well but that's by choice)  

[lockwoodlo]

[snip]
I found that disabling PclinuxOs Control Center / Hardware / Configure Video Card  / options / enable hardware accelerated mouse pointer.
solved the problem for now.
[snip}
  Trev

Thanks Trev.  When I try that on my machine, the disabled option re-enables itself.  I can't get rid of it.  Maybe it's something on the motherboard.  I'm still experimenting, but it seems very strange to me.

[lockwoodlo]

[snip]
I run the LXDE desktop on hardware older than 5 years.
(in fact, I run LXDE on my current box as well but that's by choice)  

Good thought, Rudge.  My PC is definitely "old."  As it happens, I had LXDE already installed, although i had forgotten about it.  So, following your idea, I switched into it to see whether the mouse cursor problem disappeared.

Bad news.  The cursor problem is exactly the same and in KDE.

I'm pretty sure the problem is not with PCLinuxOS or KDE.  Maybe the motherboard, maybe the mouse itself.  I have messed around with the ROM BIOS but have had no luck so far.

I'm still trying.  If I ever get this thing solved, I'll post about it.

[Old-Polack]

Rudge, I agree. That's why recent problems with cursor, printing, and a few minor issues is so disappointing. If you look over the forum, you'll see that recent updates seem to have caused problems on some machines, not others. Since all is well on my newer/better machine and my partner's older/limited machine has developed problems, it seems reasonable to wonder whether PCLOS (or maybe just the KDE version?) is no longer the choice for underpowered computers.

It's not a matter of under powered, so much as lack of support from the hardware manufacturers for their older equipment. If the only fully working drivers for certain pieces of hardware are those from the manufacturer, and they decide that hardware is too old to support any further, and cease to do so, being closed source, there is nothing anyone can do about it.

There may be open source drivers that have been reverse engineered, but if the manufacturers don't supply the developers with the proper information to make fully working drivers, that can then be maintained indefinitely, those drivers will usually be lacking in features for the more advanced aspects of that hardware. Neither we, nor any other distro has any control over what and when the manufacturers declare to be "end of life" and no longer supported.

All distros get stuck in some form of middle ground. If the software isn't upgraded, in order that the older hardware still works, people with new hardware can't use the distro, for lack of drivers that are only available for the newer software. If the software is updated to the newer version, that version will no longer have the older hardware support, because the needed drivers are no longer available. To stay reasonably current, and work on the greatest number of machines, all distros must upgrade on some form of regular basis. In the short term, some other distro may be a better choice for some people with older equipment, but as soon as that distro does their next upgrade, they too will no longer be able to work properly on that older equipment.

At some point an individual must choose to either run outdated, and possibly insecure, software on their older hardware, or upgrade the hardware in order to run the newer, more secure, and more fully featured software.

[lockwoodlo]

I think you nailed it, Old-Polack.  It's time for me to tighten the belt, lose a few pounds and save up for a new PC.  But you know, it hurts to throw the old clunker out.

I'm going to tell my son, who is trying to refurbish a Celeron PC, to just throw it out.  I'm going to chuck my old PC100 and PC133 memory modules.  All my old ISA cards have already bit the dust, time to send some others after them.

How about my old LP records, do they go out too?  Hard call, but probably yes.

My 1968 Malibu still runs great, but I'll send it to the junk yard as well.

As for my wife, . . . no, not ready to go that far.  I'm in that same category too.  :-)

What I will definitely stick with is PCLinuxOS.  There's nothing better.

[JayMot]

Yeah, I know, old thread.  But I've been having this issue for awhile, except that I only notice it when I have multiple tabs open in Firefox. The mouse cursor will disappear when I hover over a tab prior to switching between tabs. If I move the cursor off the tab and back, it's back to normal.

I tried turning off hardware mouse acceleration in the video card settings and that seems to have fixed it (after a reboot.) I did notice something funny, which was when I went back to look at the video card settings, hardware mouse acceleration was selected again. But my cursor's acting as it should now, so far (knock on wood.)

One thing I had to do was to go into Configure Your Desktop/Input Devices/Mouse/Advanced and raise the (software-based?) acceleration from 5 to 7 to keep the cursor from dragging its butt. Just FYI.

Anyway, just leaving this here for others that may be having this issue.

(Can't afford a new laptop. Gonna keep my wife too. )