Cursor Disappears - Nvidia Card

I also get this with firefox. I am getting it right now, in fact. If I load a new page, I can't see the mouse cursor in firefox. Like the OP I have a Nvidia card with Compiz installed, too. Running Gutsy.

Please attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log[.old] files showing the failure. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Debugging for more info on debugging X problems, and other info you could include to help triage this bug.

I have also experienced this bug. From what I gather, it only seems to happens when using a compositing window manager with the proprietary nvidia driver. It also seems that you can work around it by enabling HWCursor as described in the following thread. http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=90738

After using this for a few days, I've determined that enabling HWCursor does not actually fix the problem. At least not long term. It actually seems as though HWCursor has been switched off (although it is still enabled in my xorg.conf) I'm not exactly sure how HWCursor works, but... First when I enabled it, when I would spin the cube with my mouse, no matter what my settings in CCSM, the mouse cursor would always be overlayed on top of the cube while it was spinning. During this time I was also not affected by the bug described above, hence my previous comment. Now, the computer has not been restarted and my xorg.conf has not changed, but if I spin the cube the mouse cursor disappears while it is spinning and I am again affected by this bug.

Also, this bug affects more than just Firefox. It seems that any window that can put the mouse into a "waiting" state (e.g. spinning wheel and/or hourglass) will make the mouse cursor disappear as well. For example Synaptic, if I do a search for anything, while it is searching, if I place the mouse cursor over the synaptic window, the mouse cursor will disappear. Outside the window or even on the titlebar or window border and the mouse is shown and correctly changes as it should with context (e.g. resize window).

I hope that helps clarify it a little.

im getting the same problem. but does this have something to do with the nvidia restricted driver.. cos my roomate has ubuntu installed on his ibm (no video card) from the same iso as mine and doesnt face this problem..

I have the same problem and can also confirm that it affects Hardy. At first all I knew was that the pointer was sometimes disappearing in Firefox, but now I see that Cory's description is right on the mark. (I haven't tested HWCursor though.) Since the original posters haven't responded to the request for more information, I am going to take over. My machine is a Dell XPS M1710 laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS running Gutsy, but with the Kernel/Compiz/X/NVIDIA packages and various others installed from Hardy. See the various attached logs and info.

Changing to Confirmed and adding linux-restricted-modules-2.6.24 as an affected package. (I will leave it as New there until someone else confirms in Hardy too.)

Confirmed in Hardy final.

Confirmed also on my other machine, a Compaq Presario R3000 running up-to-date amd64 Hardy (upgraded from pure Gutsy).

After browsing around a little, I found the exact reproducible cause of this bug on an Ubuntu forums post:

Quoting neoakiraz on the forums:

> The problem with animated mouse cursors disappearing (like the loading cursor in Firefox) is described here [beryl-project.org]. Apparently the 'Scale the mouse pointer' and 'Hide original mouse pointer' options of the Enhanced Zoom plugin from Compz Fusion work by changing the size of the cursor to 1x1. After zooming out the static cursors are restored, but the animated are not. This is also why the bug appears so random. It only occurs after the first usage of the zoom function.

> The solution is to disable the options mentioned above, and probably use the 'Sync Mouse' option, log out and log back in. The size of the cursor will now always stay the same, but it will also not disappear anymore.

And sure enough, I had been using the enhanced zoom plugin (appears to be enabled in the Extra mode in the Appearance setting), and the described workaround seems to work for me.

More specifically, it's the "Hide original mouse pointer" setting that is the culprit in that it does not properly restore the animated cursors when the user zooms the desktop back to normal size.

Well, this problem is no longer an issue for me, during the last release, the problem went away.

easy fix:

Add: Option "HWCursor" "True"
in Section: "Device" of file /etc/X11/xorg.conf

in my case sw-coursors still work but when the sw-coursor dissapears in fox you will see the hw-cursor so it is a good workaround

by the way: nice work guys ...

oh, i also disabled those hide and scale settings of enhenced zoom plugin
may be that also helped, but disabling those alone did nothing for me.

ok i think i found the exact cause:

The problem with animated mouse cursors disappearing (like the loading cursor in Firefox) is described here [beryl-project.org]. Apparently the 'Scale the mouse pointer' and 'Hide original mouse pointer' options of the Enhanced Zoom plugin from Compz Fusion work by changing the size of the cursor to 1x1. After zooming out the static cursors are restored, but the animated are not. This is also why the bug appears so random. It only occurs after the first usage of the zoom function.

The solution is to disable the options mentioned above, and probably use the 'Sync Mouse' option, log out and log back in. The size of the cursor will now always stay the same, but it will also not disappear anymore.

read here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=2b2236b207d0b819e05dcd0f6a3d1583&t=469891&page=2

so it should also word to set SWcursor true and remove HWcursor true

So after some testing i can say SWcursor wont work at all .
(ugly blitting error so cursor is messed up when useing SWcursor)

So my steps to fix the bug are:

Step1 : Add: Option "HWCursor" "True"
             in Section: "Device" of file /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Step2: open ccsm and go to enhenced zoom plugin
            go to "Mouse-Behaviour"-Tab
            disable everything except "Sync Mouse"

Step3: save open files then press Alt+Ctrl+Backspace

Now you should be fine

Hope that helps cu guys

The 18 month support period for Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 has reached its end of life -
http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-7.10-eol . As a result, we are closing the
linux-restricted-modules-2.6.22 task. It would be helpful if you could test the
new Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release and confirm if this issue remains -
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904overview. If the issue still exists with the Jaunty
release, please update this report by changing the Status of the "linux (Ubuntu)"
task from "Incomplete" to "New". Thanks in advance.

I can confirm this bug still exists in jaunty and crackies fix is ineffective

I have Lucid. I disabled mouse pointer hiding and scaling in Enhanced Zoom in Compiz Config Manager. The mouse pointer is still disappearing.

The solution may be to use the latest nvidia driver. I'm going to try that.