Mouse cursor missing

[mtaber]

Summary:
Ok, so this is a weird issue. I installed the latest version of FGU (v4.5.1) and since upgrading, my mouse cursor disappears when I open a campaign. I can see the mouse cursor right up until the campaign window opens up with the chat box on the left and the Tool/Library/Player/Campaign/Character/etc menus show on the right.

Ruleset(s):
All

Extensions/Themes:
None/None

Modules Loaded:
None

Operating System / Language Setting:
Windows 11 Professional - English(US)

Steps to Reproduce:
All I do is open up FGU, select a campaign and launch it. As the campaign is loading, I still see the mouse cursor, but once the campaign is loaded, it disappears. Additionally, if I open a second instance of FGU and join the campaign I launched, connecting to it via localhost, the same thing happens. In the launcher, the mouse cursor is there, but as soon as I'm joined, it disappears and never returns.

There's a Windows 11 mouse cursor option to hit Win+Ctrl+X to put crosshairs on where the mouse cursor is located, so that's really the only way FGU is even functional at this point. The mouse cursor shows up as soon as I move it out of the FGU window or if I move it high enough to reach the toolbar at the top of the screen.

Additional Notes/Troubleshooting:
- All of my video and mouse drivers are up to date.
- I rolled back to a previous video driver and it didn't change anything.
- Other games and applications appear to work fine.
- If I exit FGU to the Launcher, the mouse cursor does not reappear. It stays this way until I close and reopen FGU entirely.
- This happens for all of my 5e campaigns.
- I've created a new campaign with no plugins enabled or modules loaded and the same thing happens.
- I've also created a new campaign with the CoreRPG and Pathfinder 1E rules instead of D&D 5e, with no extensions, themes or modules loaded and get the same result.
- Reinstalling the drivers and multiple reboots didn't change anything.
- Disconnecting all but a single monitor didn't change anything.
- I compiled the logs and looked through all of the text files but didn't see anything related to either of the words mouse or cursor.
- I've used the Settings app and gone through the other troubleshooting steps to do a Force App Update and Clear Settings. Neither made any difference.

This worked perfectly fine on Tuesday evening. I updated from v4.5.0 to v4.5.1 earlier today and then when I launched FGU, this started happening. Given the circumstances, it's unlikely that this isn't being caused by FGU, but I wouldn't entirely rule it out. The only other thing I can think of is that some sort of weird keyboard or mouse combination was accidentally pressed that causes the mouse cursor to disappear after FGU launches. That being the case, it's odd that it would only affect FGU and not anything else I have installed.

Any ideas for what to do here? I can send my logs if that helps.

[Moon Wizard]

No idea. Not seeing that here.

First thing, try a quick reboot, just to be sure it's just not a weird OS/driver state.
Next thing, you could always delete the FG application folder (default = C:\Program Files\SmiteWorks\Fantasy Grounds); and run a new install to see if that helps.

Regards,
JPG

[mtaber]

I tried rebooting a bunch of times earlier, but I tried it again and still nothing.
I also did a complete reinstall after deleting the original folder. On the off-chance it was related, I also uninstalled GeForce Experience and Intel Arc Control, both of which have overlapping functionalities that do things with overlays and there are a bunch of people online who've complained about the mouse cursor being visible while recording, so to be safe, I dumped them both. After uninstalling all three of them, I rebooted and reinstalled FGU. After getting into it, it's the same result.

Again, if it's not FGU, the only other thing I can think of is a weird key combination that was accidentally pressed which makes the mouse cursor go away in certain games. If that's the case, my only hope to discover what that is might be someone else having run into it in the past.

Something else weird that I noticed was that I have a screen capture program called Snag-It installed. If I hit Print Screen twice to trigger a screenshot, Snag-It has the ability to effectively keep the screen as-is while you position the mouse to target where you want the screenshot. When I did this, the mouse cursor showed up and looked correct at the time of the screenshot, but went away again immediately afterwards. I'm not sure if that means anything, but it might. I'll keep digging into it, but if anyone knows anything, drop me a line.

[Moon Wizard]

You might be onto something, since screen capture programs often hide the mouse during captures. Perhaps something running in memory is removing the cursor from being displayed as you are thinking.

Regards,
JPG

[mtaber]

Well, that was the thinking behind that theory. But I either uninstalled or shut down anything that could have done that kind of thing and the mouse cursor still disappeared when I opened up FGU.

I've spent more than a few hours trying to figure this out and I'm not any closer to a solution or working theory as to why it's actually happening. Not sure how much more time I can spend blindly troubleshooting, so I think I'll need to open up a support ticket on this.

[WishX]

I have fielded your ticket and sent back a few ideas to see if we can troubleshoot it.

[MacNCheddah]

Hello just wanted to say I have the same exact issue with no mouse courser after I updated today (3/15/2024). Ive tried multiple tabletop systems, reboots, and trying to update again and nothing seems to solve the issue for me.

[WishX]

Hello just wanted to say I have the same exact issue with no mouse courser after I updated today (3/15/2024). I've tried multiple tabletop systems, reboots, and trying to update again and nothing seems to solve the issue for me.

I was telling mtaber that sometimes weird things can happen with cursors/pointers not working as expected, where clicks land (incorrectly, mostly), opening odd programs by accident, etc., when game controllers are also attached to the machine, usually via Bluetooth. Disconnecting or unpairing the controller and restarting FGU often releases control back to the mouse and normal, expected function returns.

Since it's hard to say what is causing the issue and it's almost impossible to repeat, we're looking for common things that we've experienced in the past while the Devs look into a potentially different issue with mouse pointers.

[mtaber]

So I've gone through several hours of troubleshooting, uninstalling various apps, anything that had a screen overlay, anything that captured screenshots and removing recently installed/updated programs.

At this point, lacking anything that explicitly points to FG as the problem, I've come to believe this is a Windows 11 problem, specifically if you're running any of the Windows Insider builds. I was running Build 26058, which worked fine and then this week after updating to Build 226080 (on 3/13), I ran into this issue. Since I'd updated FG right before encountering the problem, it made sense that the FG update caused it. However, I think this is caused by Microsoft's recent updates.

Here's the link to the release notes for the latest build: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2024/03/13/announcing-windows-11-insider-preview-build-26080-canary-and-dev-channels/

If you search for "Known Issues", the third bullet point reads as follows:

We’re investigating reports of mouse cursor issues after installing Build 26058+, including that the cursor is disappearing in some apps. If you’re experiencing issues, please file feedback describing exactly what you’re seeing under Input and Language > Mouse in the Feedback Hub. This build includes a number of fixes to help with recent reports.

I installed the Feedback Hub app from the Microsoft Store and a quick search for issues related to the mouse cursor identified a thread where there were dozens of complaints about various games, all of which were exhibiting a similar problem. Between that and Microsoft's request that people file feedback about it to them so they can identify the causes leads me the the conclusion that this is caused by Microsoft, not FG. It also appears that their attempt at a fix in the latest build actually caused FG to break.

The only workaround that I've found which seems to help so far is to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Win+X, which will add crosshairs to the screen to show where the mouse is. It's a little annoying for sure, but at least it makes FG usable again. I don't think there anything anyone can do about it until Microsoft releases a fix because it doesn't appear to be possible to revert to a previous build.

Hopefully this summary helps at least a few other people who might be running into the same issue.