Cursor is gone! Why?

karavite

karavite

Registered
New issue today. Running 10.1.3 and suddenly my cursor just dissapppears. Keyboard doesn't seem to respond either though all applications including a Windows Media audio stream just hum along. I'm using a Logitech cordless mouse and it has been perfect from OS9 through all OSX versions. I put in new batteries for the mouse, hit the reset button for the mouse, unplugged and replugged my keyboard and mouse into USB ports and nothing but rebooting the mac will bring it back. This has happened three times in a row running a fair amount of apps including Windows Media player, classic, mail, IE, WordX...

Any ideas how I can isolate the problem? I am running a fresh install of OSX and I have had 10.1.3 up since the day my little software updater told me about it. This just started today and it is weird (please don't tell me I have hardware issues! - well, unless you really think I do of course). I'm trying to dig up my old hockey puck mouse to see if this will happen with it, but any advice or similar experiences would be very helpful.
 
This sounds similar to the problem where iTunes will lock up all USB devices if it's been playing for a while. Whenever this happens, see if iTunes is open. If it is, then there's your problem.

iTunes 2.0.4 supposedly fixes the problem that I just described, so you should update to that version (you'll have to redownload it... it's not available via Software Update). Just go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/ .
 
Thanks simX - no itunes running and I have the update. It has frozen up two more times since I posted and now the cursor is visible, but frozen. Maybe it was there before, but I looked carefully. So, now I am experiencing OSX just freezing up. I thought it wasn't supposed to do this! This is a brand new install less than two weeks old. I have never had OSX just freeze up on me in six months on this machine and sudently four times in one day.
 
Well, try this first. Plug in your standard pro mouse that came with your computer and use that for a few hours. See if it still happens. This will tell us if it's a hardware issue with the logitech mouse or something inside of OS X.

Let us know and we can work from there.
 
dricci - I'll try and find the darn old mouse, but I think it is gone. In the mean time, why would my Mac that has used the same mouse for over a year start crashing with it? Of course, I started this thread and made a big deal about the missing cursor, but the last two crashes were "freezes" with the cursor visible. It may have been visible in the other freezes, but I have two 19" monitors and the screens were rather busy. I just don't know.
 
Hmm.. I don't know. It could be the hardware doing something to the system (I've had kernel panics from unplugging a USB hub from the wall outlet, so a usb mouse could easily cause a problem).
 
My wife has been experiencing cursor freezes while running Classic (which I seldom use). We have a Kensington optical mouse plugged into an Ortek keyboard. I made the pleasant discovery that unplugging and replugging the mouse cures the freeze.
I don't know if this will help in your situation, but it might be worth a shot.
 
Thanks all - I think I was running classic as well (darn Real Player - that is all I need from Classic these days!). Maybe I have Classic extensions that are messing with USB - who knows? I'm just always suspicious of the updates and am hoping this is some 10.1.3 issue. I'll try and get my hands on another mouse and see what happens. I'm also using a non apple keyboard (Macally?) that I just love.
 
For anyone who is interested, the freeze problem seemed to be related to running classic and the classic sleep option. When classic went to sleep, my G4 450 froze. Since I set classic to never sleep, no freezes. This never happened until 10.1.3. Still, I am so close to being classic free I can live with this.
 
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