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Forums -> UltraMon™ -> Cursor corruption when using dual screens
Zazou   2008-02-01 07:08
Hey.

I'm running dual screens--my laptop's built in one, and another via the laptop's dock's DVI.

When just using one monitor at a time (laptop screen when undocked, DVI-linked one when docked), I experience no problems at all.

However, when I try to use multiple monitors, then hibernate, and restore, my mouse cursor appears corrupted. It seems to show as either the wrong cursor, a corrupted 32x32px blob of madness, or the wrong cursor with an offset.

I've tried going into mouse options and setting my pointers to try to remedy the problem (at least temporarily), but in the corrupted state, any changes I make there have no effect.

Is this an ultramon problem, a Windows one, or ...?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Christian Studer   2008-02-01 09:25
My guess would be that this is a display driver issue, I would recommend getting the latest drivers for the laptop's video chipset.

To verify that the issue isn't related to UltraMon, try if you still have the problem without UltraMon running or installed.

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
gynni   2008-02-06 22:32
ive got the same problem here with a 8800gt and newest drivers:
switching display profiles results in f*cked up mouse cursors as described above :/
really annoying.. guess i wont extend my trial :(
gynni   2008-02-06 22:33
oh, and: yes, its only happening when switching display profiles with ultramon. no problems when switching via nvidia driver utility (but it has no hotkeys of course)..
Christian Studer   2008-02-07 08:00
What happens if you change display settings via Display Properties > Settings?

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
Fredrik   2008-02-16 06:03
I have a similar problem - sometimes when moving the cursor between the screens the mouse cursor image gets corrupted.

I always thought this was the ATI drivers though...
JE   2008-03-26 13:11
Any fixes for this problem yet? It is clearly an Ultramon issue. Laptop hooked up to external display. When coming out of hibernation with just the laptop display, cursor is a plain 'box'. Often times it will happen too when scrolling from external display to the laptop (secondary) display. It usually seems to revolve around coming out of sleep/hibernation.

The problem only happens when Ultramon is loaded.

Major bug.
Christian Studer   2008-03-27 12:01
Which version of UltraMon and Windows are you using, and what's your video card/chipset?

I use hibernate and standby all the time, but haven't seen this issue myself so far.

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
Andy Yu   2008-04-01 16:57
I too have the same problem when using dual screens. I often get a corrupt mouse cursor when returning from hibernation. I also have the problem that the cursor gets stuck in the hourglass state. The cursor can get stuck in one screen but not the other.

I'm running UltraMon on WinXP and I've got a Lenovo T61 with NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M. The graphic drivers are v6.14.11.133.
Christian Studer   2008-04-02 10:01
Andy, does uninstalling UltraMon fix the problem?

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
Valamas   2008-04-02 13:36
Does shaking the mouse cursor across the screen, somewhat violently, return the cursor to a normal state?

I have this problem, however, this occured on v2.7.1 ages ago for which I have un-installed for a long time. I do not have v3 beta installed yet as im waiting to see if people are reporting bugless success.
Valamas   2008-04-02 13:38
Do any of you have monitors which are not setup side by side?

For example, I access to my second monitor by going down to the bottom left hand corner, near the system tray.

Since I set that up, the problem seemed to have appeared. As i said before, had v2.7.1 installed. Uninstalled that and never have installed v3.

Vista 64bit too.
Valamas   2008-04-02 13:39
Correction bottom right hand corner near the system tray.
JE   2008-05-06 23:59
I too have the 'square blob instead of mouse cursor' on the secondary display. As I said before, hibernation seems to trigger it, as does enabling/disabling secondary display, or docking/undocking, thus making the secondary display the primary.

Ultramon 3.0 beta 2.1, Lenovo T61, NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M display.
Nick   2008-07-17 05:26
I have v3.0.2 and a 3 monitor setup and also have this corrupt cursor problem.

It happens at least once a day, when moving between monitors, it will either turn into a square 'blob' or a vertical 'squiggle' line.

I can sometimes make it go away by slowly passing the cursor between 2 monitors. However, sometimes this causes the monitors to freeze and reset.

I have 2 ATI video cards, 1 with dual dvi and the other with single dvi.
Shane   2009-08-04 00:13
I have the same issue but it was present prior to using Ultramon (but is still present).

I am using a Dell D630C and Windows XP. The card is Nvidia Quadro NVS 135M.

I updated the drivers using the Windows Control Panel Device Mgr. That got me driver version 6.14.11.5619 dated 8/1/2007.

Then I went to nvidia's web site and found a driver download dated May 07, 2009. I also read through the release notes and found that for my laptop (and other Dell computers) "it is highly recommended that you first install this Dell software update" (a bios upgrade).

I will let you know if I am still seeing these issues when this update is complete.

-Shane
Tony Pugielli   2009-09-25 06:10
I am having a similiar issue. Updated to 3.0.7 beta. sometimes when I move the mouse cursor to the nest screen is looks like a vertical bar with a bunch of small triangle flags hanging off of it. I updated the video drivers and changed teh video card.

ATI RAdeon x1300HD
Christian Studer   2009-09-25 09:57
Tony, it's very unlikely that this would be related to UltraMon, to verify this check if you still have the problem without UltraMon running or installed.

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
bosox   2009-09-28 05:51
I am getting what I think is a very similar issue. Whenever I change from one state to the other (Docked w/ dual screen vs. Undocked) my computer tends to freeze up. Before I take the laptop off of the dock I often change the output settings from dual to single monitor and close the laptop. When I open it again off of the dock it freezes and requires a hard restart. It works the same in reverse.

I just tried a few times with Ultramon disabled, and had no issues at all, leading me to believe it is an issue with Ultramon. I'd like to be able to use Ultramon, so if someone with any ideas on how to fix this could help me out I would appreciate it.

Windows XP Professional, Ultramon v. 3.0.5 Beta
Christian Studer   2009-09-28 07:20
I'm not sure what might cause this, most UltraMon features (window buttons, Smart Taskbar, etc) are disabled if only a single monitor is enabled. Can you still open Task Manager by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL when this happens?

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
wily   2010-01-18 14:28
I have a similar problem - in the same condition with Win7 x64, latest ATI driver - 8.682.2.0 and the same bug but with another Multi-Monitor application (actualtools).
pl   2010-02-24 00:40
Fixed it by going to Display Poperties -> Settings -> Advanced -> Troubleshoot
Then lowering the Hardwared Acceleration. Hope this helps...
Bryan   2010-02-25 07:52
I too have the corrupt mouse problem with my Windows 7 - 64 bit OS. I tried the hardware acceleration fix. My ATI Radeon HD 3870 does not have the option to change the setting under the Troubleshoot tab.

Bryan
Steve   2010-03-16 17:12
This is NOT an UltraMon issue... I dont even have ultramon and i have the same issue. I believe it is a windows 7 64bit issue. I have windows 7 64bit and dual monitors. WHen i come out of sleep, my cursor gets corrupted.

I'm heading to a m$ forum to complain. :)
khalid   2010-05-25 10:43
TRY THIS:
Cursor corrupt on win7 ? Press START+U, open magnifier and set zoom to 100%. It needs to stay open, but it works.
Aj   2010-06-28 22:17
Folks "pl" suggestion works:
pl 2010-02-24 06:40
Fixed it by going to Display Poperties -> Settings -> Advanced -> Troubleshoot
Then lowering the Hardwared Acceleration. Hope this helps...
moatdd   2010-07-09 04:46
I've encountered the cursor corruption too and found it was because I use an animated cursor as my main cursor.

I was able to solve the problem WITHOUT having to lower hardware acceleration by turning on Mouse Cursor Trails, and then turning the Trail Length down to the minimum setting.
Potatoe   2011-01-31 00:17
just confirming turning trails on fixes the problem immediately.. also its stupid that i can toggle the problem off and on by doing this
BS   2011-07-14 02:01
I've also been having this issue. i have a dual monitor setting. lowering the Hardwared Acceleration worked on the primary display, but on the other it would still be corrupt. as someone else mentioned, i tried turning on cursor trails (at minimum, since i hate them) and it worked like a charm. still unsure of the root cause of this issue.
Stuart   2011-11-02 05:33
I thought I was going crazy. I even went and bought another video card, only to have the problem come back 2 days after I installed it.

Damn you windows 7 64 bit...

Magifify trick worked, also the mouse pointer trails works.

I implemented the mouse pointer trails fix.

The message was posted on Nov 02, 2011
Valerio   2011-12-01 19:24
I had the same issue with double monitor and restoring the ibernation. Mouse pointer in the second monitor with square until I reboot the machine.. Everything solved with Monitor Proprerty -> advanced -> troubleshoot decreasing of one step the slider of the hardware acceleration.
As the description of the control says
"Disable cursor and bitmatp accellerations. Use this settings to correct problems with the mouse pointer, or to correct problems with corrupt images".

Thank you all!

Valerio
Jeremy Linton   2012-01-01 07:24
Hello, I have nvidia 285.58 on a 9600GT. It has exactly the same kind of problem (rotated or corrupt cursor, on the second display). This started at driver version ~152 and has been there ever since. Initially the cursor is fine, but if I start a RDP session, a large percentage of the time logging back in to the main console results in the cursor corruption. Its not an ultramon issue as much as a nvidia one (cause i'm not running ultramon). I opened a defect 6 months ago, and haven't heard a thing. If you search google for cursor problem on second monitor there are hundreds of hits including this one.

Besides rebooting, or lowering the display acceleration the only "solution" seems to be to enable pointer trails with the shortest trail. This basically disables the hardware cursor, Which is why it works.
vandaemb   2012-08-06 19:58
Just turn off the pointer shadow effect for XP and later.
Sandman510   2012-09-10 04:37
There's no known fix at this time. There's however a workaround:

If you enable mouse pointer trails, the corruption will go away.

In your Windows 7 go to Control Panel -> Mouse -> Pointer Options Tab
Enable Pointer Trails.
If you don't like the effect, move the slider all the way to the left. This will make the trailing effect all but disappear.

That's it. The mouse corruption will "not" happen again. The constant redrawing of the mouse trails is effectively hiding the bug from view.
CE   2012-10-05 04:32
THANK YOU THANK YOU Sandman and others who offer solutions! This issue has been driving me up one side and down the other, and now I am sane once again. The mouse trails solution worked for me!

Mine was ghosting a bizarre second cursor offset to one side by a quarter inch or so, which made selecting things in Photoshop horribly difficult.

This is great. I heart teh interwebs today!
David   2014-08-04 23:58
Hi

Old old thread but recently got Win 7 at work since XP is dead finally.
I have never at this problem at home but got it instantly at work. My workaround was to change the pointer to windows black instead.
Prasad Siri   2014-08-30 08:34
Try This:
Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Mouse
Select Pointers Tab then change Schema to "Windows Black (system schema)"

Stay Hungry, Stay foolish
Bubba   2016-02-05 08:52
The magnify trick worked. Cursor went from a black square, back to the regular mouse. Note, this was on an Acer laptop running Win 8.1 with AMD as the video driver.

Another note: this ONLY happened when I connected external TELEVISIONS. (i.e. at a hotel), but NEVER with external computer monitors.
Forums -> UltraMon™ -> Cursor corruption when using dual screens

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