Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Odd Mouse Behavior

I did several Internet searches to try to find someone else experiencing the problem described below:
"two mousepointers"
"circle square mousepointer"
"odd mouse behavior"
"trapped mousepointer"

I tried some others that I can't remember now, but I never got a description like the one I'm about to provide.  Hopefully I've described it well enough that someone who has the same trouble and does a Google search will find my post.

Sometimes, while I'm using my laptop, the mouse pointer turns kind of invisible.  It's still in the same place, and as I move it, it shows up, and I can click on things and use the mouse just like always, but if I stop moving it, it disappears.

Actually, it doesn't really disappear.  It moves to the middle of a geometric shape about one inch to the right of the left edge of my screen, and about four inches below the top edge.  The shape is sometimes a circle, sometimes, a square, and sometimes a circle that pulses with circular shading, as if it is a pond into which a pebble was dropped (but the "waves" are much faster).  So if I don't move the mouse, it sits there in the middle of that shape.

Once I start moving the mouse, its position goes back to where it was last time I was moving it, and it appears in the old position and the new places into which I move it.

This mousepointer behavior is very annoying, but only because I can't see where the mouse is unless I'm moving it.  That is the only symptom I've found.

The shape that "holds" the mousepointer while I'm not using it is generally a solid white outline with a translucent white background, sitting on top of everything else.  If I move a window in such a way as to cover the shape, the window goes "under" the shape.  I found a few hits on the Internet about a mousepointer getting stuck in a box during some kind of remote access, so I just changed my password.

I did a scan with Malware Antibytes a few days ago, which found and quarantined something, but the mouse problem still occurred after that.

If you found this post by doing a google search, please let me know what you searched for.  I'd like to add to the list of search terms that people can use to find information about this peculiar behavior.

1 comment:

Dave Scotese said...

I figured out the problem today. I dropped my laptop while on a trip and the touchscreen cracked. For whatever reason the touch-detection algorithm reads the cracks (sometimes) as if I'm touching the screen. I proved this was the problem by disabling the "HID-Compliant Touch screen" Device under "Human Interface Devices" in the Device Manager (under "Devices and Printers" in Control Panel) while the problem was occurring, and it ended immediately. The shape remains on the screen, but I know I can get rid of it by putting the computer to sleep and then waking it up again.