Unable to use cursor in Google Chrome on Surface Pro 1

Question

When I'm using a USB mouse, or the trackpad on my type cover (Type Cover 2, if it makes a difference), I've noticed that the cursor is not recognized when I move it over a Google Chrome window. What happens is that the cursor itself immediately disappears, and clicks are not registered.

One curious thing is that cursor movement is still recognized; I can move it around the screen (blindly, of course), and it will come back into operation when it exits the Chrome window bounds.

Another curious thing is that this doesn't happen every time. On some occasions I'll be able to see the cursor, but not click on anything. On others, I'll be able to do both. However, more often than not I have a completely disabled cursor, as described in the first paragraph.

Has anyone else encountered this problem, or have any ideas for potential solutions?

Solution

I highly suspect that this is a hardware conflict with DirectWrite which was introduce in Chrome version 37 and the GPU within the Surface Pro 1.

I would try and disable DirectWrite to see if that makes any difference.

I have provided Pankaj's answer below as a reference

In order to disable DirectWrite.

Go to address bar and type chrome://flags/#disable-direct-write. There you will see the option to disable DirectWrite.

If I were to hazard a guess that the GPU within the Intel Ivy Bridge used in the Surface Pro 1 simply isn't powerful enough for DirectWrite. It also could be a display driver problem that could be solved by verifying you have the current revision of Intel's display drivers.

This also could be a conflict with the display itself. You can verify this by using an external monitor to see if the problem still exists.

You can also disable hardware acceleration within Chrome

Comments

[Ramhound]

What version of Chrome? If its version 37+ disable DirectWrite and see if that makes a difference.

[Jason Baker]

@Ramhound That does seem to have fixed the issue. Could you make it an answer I can accept? Also if you have any theories about what causes this issue, I'd be interested in hearing them

[Ramhound]

I attemped to post the best answer I could. I wrote it as such that I didn't know it was the actual solution. Since how you disable the feature was already asked I quoted that answer and linked to the question itself. I also linked to how you disable hardware acceleration but didn't include the content because I don't think it will actually help. I highly suspect its either a driver problem or hardware conflict thats to blame though.

[Remus Rigo]

Looks like DirectWrite does a lot of bad things :)