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

Question

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).

Solution 1

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.

Solution 2

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

Solution 3

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

Solution 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.

Solution 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.

View more solutions

Comments

[sdaau]

Hi @BlueXrider - many thanks for your answer! That PC "is missing a keyboard", so I cannot press Alt-F2 :) However, I tried the sudo modprobe psmouse via ssh, and that unfortunately does not show the mouse pointer after suspend wake (apparently, this is gnome bug, not mouse driver bug). Ubuntu 10.04 also complains: "sudo: /etc/init.d/hotplug: command not found"... Cheers!

[Davidmh]

Thank you! I am having this recurrent problem with Fedora LXDE, and you have saved me from restarting.

[skytreader]

gnome-settings-daemon --replace was this supposed to trigger something like a reboot? Like close all your windows and prompt you for another login?

[Paul Rougieux]

Entering the "Mouse and Touchpad" setting also solves the missing mouse pointer issue in Debian 8 Gnome 3.14.1

[dwks]

This works on chromebooks when you lose the cursor switching into/out of X framebuffers (crouton). Thanks so much!

[Seppo Erviälä]

I guess their syntax changed a bit unclutter -idle 1 -root -grab -visible worked for me.

[not2qubit]

Mint 18 doesn't seem to have this option.

[echo_salik]

Why does this work? Can anyone kindly explain?