Mouse pointer misalignment

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Since moving to Big Sur, currently 11.4, I’ve had an intermittent malfunction of the mouse pointer. The arrow on screen has its point of effect or activation up to several centimetres away from what it is pointing at, in any radial direction.

Since I don’t know when it has gone suddenly askew, I find myself doing things I don’t want, such as deleting things, switching to other windows, or invoking functions at cross purposes to what I’m doing. Since there is no indication of where the arrow tip has landed, I don't know what I've just done. Also, it’s frustrating to try to change desktop unsuccessfully only to find that the pointer is invisibly missing the hot corner.

Also on occasion it will simply do nothing when I click the mouse, refusing to select a window, or provide work indicator in text.

The people at my local Apple store don’t know anything about it, and persuaded me to buy a new magic mouse which made no difference.

The malfunction is comes and goes, but seems to recur more often when I have used Mission Control, the poorer replacement for Spaces.

Sometimes it will go wrong when I haven’t used the Mac nor touched the mouse for several minutes. Also, having worked properly the night before, it is being obtuse the moment I awaken the computer the next morning.

It’s as if something, probably inside the computer, is irregularly interfering with the wireless connection between computer and mouse.

It seems to happen less often after a restart but becomes increasingly prevalent with more computer use.

I can clear the problem sometimes by wanging the mouse pointer round the screen in a desperate and hysterical way. [As I type this the pointer is activating between three character spaces to the left of where it should be.]

I wonder if this has only happened to me, or if it is a known, but rare, glitch.
 

Cory Cooper

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Hi,

Yes, that is a strange issue, and I don't recall coming across it previously.

-Which model Mac again? (iMac I believe)
-Do you have a wired USB mouse to try?
-If so, you could try removing/deleting the Magic Mouse and re-add it to see if that helps.
-You could also try an SMC and NVRAM reset.

C
 
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I have an old Pro Mouse which I have plugged in to the back of the iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020), but I don’t know how to make it work. In System Preferences: Mouse, there isn’t any indication of how to switch to it, or any other non-wireless device, controlling the pointer. I tried turning the Magic Mouse off. The Pro Mouse didn’t squeak or give any signs of digital life never mind managing the pointer arrow.

I’m hesitant about a NVRAM reset as if it removes or changes the settings, I won’t be able to get back to them as I don’t remember what they are.

I think the T2 chip is Apple’s new in-house effort, which I don’t have, so I can do the old bog-standard SMC reset.
 
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This morning, on returning to the computer after having used it earlier, I found it shut down. I pressed the button at the back to restart it. I got a display of fragmented coloured lines. So I performed the prescribed SMC reset.

Now, all seems well. However, on previous occasions when the mouse/computer pairing worked properly, after a while it started to malfunction in that weird way I have described. So I’m only provisionally, tentatively relieved.

And if that SMC reset really has fixed the problem, it gives no clue to what was going on and why it happened. I can’t ask Apple, because it doesn’t recognise users as valid entities with whom it can converse. Its communications are unilateral. I’m curious about how the pointer/action misalignment works and whether anyone at Apple understands anything about it.
 

Cory Cooper

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Hi,

The old Apple USB Pro mouse should just work when plugged in, even if the Magic Mouse isn't functioning properly. Because of its age, the Mouse preference pane may not have any controls/affect, but it should move the cursor and be able to perform a single click.

The NVRAM reset only makes the following changes, which are easy to set back to your personal preference:

"Settings that can be stored in NVRAM include sound volume, display resolution, startup-disk selection, time zone, and recent kernel panic information. The settings stored in NVRAM depend on your Mac and the devices that you're using with your Mac."

Glad it seems to be resolved. I don't have any idea either as to what would cause the tracking issue, as I haven't seen that happen.

C
 

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