Fed up with insertion point/cursor disappearing; happening everywhere several months

[CZroe]

OK, with issues like this in the 9x days, you always turned HW acceleration down in the graphics options, and I'm thinking that this issues may be related, hence, this forum, but this has been happening on every Windows Vista/7 computer I used and in most browsers. I first noticed in in the fields for YouTube comments but soon noticed it on sites everywhere, including this forum. I believe it has something to do with the way new browsers handle text fields, like they all decided to update and use one with glitchy cursor/insertion point code.

Basically, sometimes is stops blinking and the only way to find it is to type something or reset it with your mouse but it remains invisible. Sometimes clicking out of the text field of hovering your mouse pointer over a different text field will trigger it to start blinking but it will usually stop again when you move back to the field you needed it in.

In decades of computing, a functional cursor/insertion point has always been something I could count on. In recent months, it's been F'd up royally. Whoever is responsible should be ashamed. I don't know if a change in graphics drivers (most of the systems I use are nVidia), an updated API/library in Windows, or something with FF4/IE9, but I didn't notice it until several months ago and it has been happening to me on a daily basis ever since (both PCs at home and the PC at work). I didn't say anything at first because I figured the issue would get priority attention by whomever was at fault but I stay up-to-date and the issue persists.

Any insight? Anyone know what I'm talking about? Is there a fix?

 

[toyota]

happened every now and then using FF and I would restart the browser and the cursor would come back. I do not ever recall it happening using Chrome or IE8/9 and I have basically stopped using FF for the last few months. even my mother called me one day because her cursor disappeared and restarting FF fixed it. she now uses Chrome.

 

[CZroe]

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=17759a72f3893236&hl=en

These people say it's happening in Safari too.

I did notice that it's only plaintext entry fields, like Gmail, YouTube comments, and forum posts. Their solution is no good because it happens everywhere (not just gmail).

You can move it around with your arrow keys but it's still invisible. Right now it is visible but it is not animates (stuck as just a vertical line) so I suspect that it's never really invisible, just stuck at the "off" portion of the blinking cycle. I just tried to move my insertion point and it remained visible where I left it and not where I clicked until I typed something causing it to jump where I clicked. Even then, it did not start animating so it would not have been visible at all if it were stuck in the "off" state rather than the "on" state it's currently stuck in.

 

[CZroe]

It happens to me daily on a work system (nVidia IGP with Windows Vista), my home system (nVidia GTX280 + Win7) and the two notebooks I've had in the past 1.5 years (nVidia switchable graphics with Intel IGP and GT335M and nVidia Optimus hybrid graphics with Intel IGP and GT540M, both with Win7). So, I know it happens in Win7 and Vista. The common threads I see are nVidia, Aero, and modern browsers. I had nVidia graphics disabled on my older notebook almost the entire time (switchable graphics), so I doubt it's nVidia drivers. I don't really want to disable Aero but I'm going to do so anyway just to see if it makes a difference. As for browsers, it's been happening in IE8 at work and IE9/FF4 everywhere else but I'm going to download some older portable versions of Firefox 3.x to see if they do it too (I know they didn't back when they were modern).

 

[Bill Brasky]

It happens to me also, but only sometimes. Clicking outside of the textbox and then back inside the box fixes it for me.

 

[NoQuarter]

If you are using Firefox 4 try disabling the GPU acceleration in Options -> Advanced -> General