Cursor disappearing unless locked to window, or white square around it in windowed mode ?

[Andrei]

First post here, something finally drove me nuts, enough for me to bother other people about it lol

 

What happened : seemingly out of nowhere, when I loaded up the game 2 days ago, mouse cursor had a white square around it; the square is just a bit bigger than the cursor, just enough to encapsulate it

After a few hours of searching and a bunch of trial and error, here is what I found : 

- when game is in windowed mode and cursor is not locked to window : white square around the cursor
- when game is in fullscreen or borderless fullscreen (they seem to act the same) : if cursor is not locked to window, mouse cursor becomes invisible in the menu, even though UI elements still react to the mouse normally (that's how I can "guess" where the mouse is, in order to revert the changes and get back the settings where I can see the cursor)
- no matter the display mode, when I check the "Lock cursor to window" setting, mouse cursor becomes normal just like before; (even though, I never had this setting on , before encountering this bug !)

 

Now, I wrote "seemingly" beforehand because when this first happened, I was in the process of testing out mods for the first time, and also my Windows install had some issues right about that time. So naturally, I think one of these may have caused my bug to start happening.
- I downloaded and put a few mods in the mods folder; I tried out the game and everything seems to be working properly; I tried removing mods and that didn't change anything for the issues with the cursor, so I'm more inclined to think this has nothing to do with it
- my Windows install had some issues right around that time : start menu bugged out, mouse pointer speed reset to default when I restarted the pc; all seems to have been corrected with another restart on the Windows side, but I wouldn't know if that could have broken something in the game

 

Seeing as many people online were talking about mouse properties : 
- I have tried unchecking the "hide pointer while typing" box
- have tried enabling then re-disabling the "display pointer trails" box
- have tried exiting my mouse software and restarting PZ. For the record, I have a Logitech MX Master 3S and use Logi Options+ but the software doesn't seem to have updated recently or anything

 

One other interesting thing I out found just now, is that when I have the white square around the cursor (so in windowed mode, having unchecked the "cursor lock" checkbox), and I try to take a screenshot, the white box/square disappears ! The screenshot simply shows the normal, regular cursor, as if nothing's wrong ! I would have liked to show you exactly what I'm talking about (that's why I tried to screenshot it), but I guess if you guys think it would be useful, I'll take a photo with my phone, of the computer screen... This makes me lean more towards thinking it might be a Windows issue ...

 

I don't know what I can try anymore. I know I could simply ignore it and play the game with mouse cursor locked, in fullscreen; but I would really love to be able to play it again like before, since I have multiple screens and I usually have other things running that need controlling...

 

Anyone has any idea on what else I could try ?

Thank you !

 

[Beard]

Just to understand correctly, your issue has been fixed by using the "Lock cursor to window", right? Are there any problems with using it? Does it cause any issues with it being on? You should still be able to leave the game with the cursor when you alt-tab.

[Andrei]

Exactly. The issue is kind of solved by locking the cursor to the window and you are right, I can alt-tab with no issues.

Thing is, it is not actually solving the issue, but simply finding a way to avoid it, since the issue only appears when I try to unlock the cursor from the window.

 

I could indeed only play the game this way from now on, but I would lie if I said I didn't want to find a solution for the actual bug and go back to playing the game the usual way 😅

But you're right, if there's no way to fix it, I'd probably give up in a few weeks time haha

 

Edited February 18 by Andrei

[EnigmaGrey]

Sometimes it's down to custom cursors, desktop replacement programs, using the trails option for your mouse pointer, or windows getting a little confused when hdr is enabled ( windows key + alt + b will manually turn it off, then press the combo again to turn it back on, often restoring the missing cursor for me).

 

it makes it really hard to know what really is happening beyond something is going wrong at the OS level with the way it draws the mouse pointer. 

[Andrei]

Thanks for the idea ! 

I tried the hdr shortcut; apparently it was off by default, so I tried to turn it on and off a few times, it sadly didn't change anything.

I don't have anything custom, nothing related to my cursor is different from the windows default (as far as I know)

Trails option is turned off also.

 

I really think you're right, windows must be getting confused somehow ...

 

I'm guessing that when the cursor is not locked to the game window, it's Windows that manages its position, right ? That may be why it puts that weird white square around it, and that may also be the reason why, when I try to take a screenshot, it simply doesn't show the white box ...

Do you happen to have any other ideas, by chance ? 

Thank you

[EnigmaGrey]

Unfortunately, I don't have any other suggestions. But if we ever find something, I've got this thread bookmarked.

[draxo]

I'm not an expert or anything but I would try this:

1. If you're using windows 11 you could turn off "Optimizations for windowed games" in Settings > System  > Display  > Graphics > Change default graphics settings.
2. Check DPI Scaling settings Right-click .exe > Compatibility > Override high DPI > Choose "Application"
3. Logi Options+ is a good suspect as well so you can try to unistall it and see if anything changes.

4. If nothing helps, you can always try troubleshoot in clean boot mode.

Edited February 18 by draxo