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Accepted
sdaau
Asked: 2012-04-02 12:42:10 +0800 CST

How to restart only missing/invisible mouse pointer/cursor?

  • 772

For some reason, the mouse pointer on my Ubuntu 10.04 PC disappears after the computer is woken up from suspend. That PC is missing a keyboard, so I can fix this by logging via ssh, and issuing: 

sudo service gdm restart

... however, this basically restarts gnome, and will close any applications that may have been running.

Another way to solve this is to set up that PC as a synergy slave - and then move the mouse from the synergy master to the slave desktop; this brings the mouse pointer back.

Is it possible to run some command, such that I don't need to restart X (or gdm) but I'll effectively restart the mouse pointer code? Then I could put this into a script on the desktop, and be able to recover the mouse pointer after suspend without needing a second machine (even with the mouse pointer invisible, mouseovers on icons are still rendered, so I could target this icon).

10.04 mouse gdm

11 Answers

  1. this may fix the problem.

    If you are stuck with no mouse movement on your laptop (touchpad) then press the key combinations Alt+F2 and type in

    gksudo modprobe -r psmouse

    Type in the password, press enter, and then press Alt+F2 again for entering the following

    gksudo modprobe psmouse

    Thats it. Your mouse pointer will start working again.

    If you like to do it through the terminal, then type in gnome-terminal after pressing Alt+F2 When the terminal open up type the following

    sudo modprobe -r psmouse

    or

    sudo modprobe psmouse

    If your usb mouse is getting stuck, then use the following command after pressing Alt+F2

    gksudo /etc/init.d/hotplug restart
    • 40

  2. I am using Xubuntu 16.04. The suggestion posted in this answer by Ulad Kasach worked for me.

    Bring the cursor back with Ctrl+Alt+F1 followed by Ctrl+Alt+F7

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  3. Best Answer

    Finally, found a solution for this:

    From #696855 - How do you hide the mouse pointer under Linux/X11? - Stack Overflow; I heard about unclutter, so just ran

    sudo apt-get install unclutter

    And then put the following in a script on the desktop, called, say unclutter.sh:

    unclutter -idle 1 -root -grab -visible

    ... and make sure you've done chmod +x unclutter.sh.

    Then, after the mouse pointer disappears after suspend, use mouseover of icons to target the script and run it; this will start unclutter, which will simply hide (the already invisible) mouse pointer after 1 second of mouse inactivity; but then when you move the mouse after that, finally the mouse pointer will show :) ... however note that to stop unclutter after that, you'd have to do from terminal: 

    sudo killall unclutter

    ... as unclutter would be, at that point, running in the background.

    Note: also tried, via #15 / Bug #337926 “vino: mouse cursor stays in upper left corner” : Bugs : “vino” package : Ubuntu, to use: 

    xdotool mousemove 100 100

    but this does not make the mouse pointer show again.

    Btw, one can look in the synergy source, WebSVN - synergy - /trunk/, and the "reset" of the mouse pointer seems to be coded in ./lib/platform/CXWindowsScreen.cpp.

    • 17

  4. This answer from It's F.O.S.S. worked for me once.

    gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.cursor active false

    The second time, it did not work, and neither did any of the above suggestions. So after these, I just closed the lid of my laptop to suspend it, reopened it, and the pointer was back.

    • 3

  5. Had that problem the other day. I switched to another terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and then came back to the current window (Ctrl+Alt+F7). It did the trick for me.

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  6. Had this issue with my laptop's touchpad mouse missing. Using your keyboard for navigation, open launcher (windows key) and type "mouse". In the modal that pops up, check if Touchpad section is in the "ON" position.

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  7. I've tried many things, including restarting the GNOME shell, suspending, and executing

    gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.cursor active false
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.cursor active true
dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/touchpad/tochpad-enabled false
dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/touchpad/tochpad-enabled true
dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/cursor/active false
dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/cursor/active true

    What finally helped me was to restart the gsd via gnome-settings-daemon --replace.

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  8. It is also worth to check battery of your mouse if it is a wireless one, the battery may just went flat with such effect of unmoving cursor.

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  9. Restart the touchpad. One way using xinput.

    1. Find touchpad device id using xinput --list
    2. Stop touchpad: xinput disable id_found_in_step_1
    3. Start touchpad: xinput enable id_found_in_step_1

    This just worked for me now on Ubuntu 18.04!

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  10. If you are using gnome, this worked for me. Run the command below and note your touch pad id. For example, mine is 12 labelled id=12

    xinput --list

    Run

    xinput set-prop 12 "Device Enabled" 0

    To disable your touchpad.

    Then run

    xinput set-prop 12 "Device Enabled" 1

    To enable it again.

    Refresh xorg by holding down command + r. Type r and click enter key.

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