Trouble with the cursor and mouse

15 Feb 2021 16:04:21

Michael Corgan

Running Big Sur on my 2015 iMac the cursor has just started to behave uncontrollaby; the insert cursor clicks away to the end of an entry box or a line and in addition the mouse pointer is not responding precisely. Restarting the system stops this, but the actions return after a while. This has started today and I am puzzled to know why - can't find anything relevant on the internet.
Have many people at AUGW had problems with Big Sur? It is also running very slowly both in opening on a reboot (8-12 minutes) and in booting up standard programmes (8-10 seconds to open Pages with a further 6 or so to open a blank template). Maybe I should consider reverting to Catalina.

Re: Trouble with the cursor and mouse

15 Feb 2021 21:34:54

David Moon

Have you tried a different mouse before assuming a software problem causing cursor misbehaviour? Just a thought.

Big Sur seems to run fine on my 2016 MacBook Pro and I can't sense any change in boot uptime over Catalina, basically very fast, but I have benefit of SSD.

You could try a safe boot and see if that cleans things up a bit.

Re: Trouble with the cursor and mouse

16 Feb 2021 10:18:04

Mick Burrell

Running fine on 2015 MacBook Pro (and 2018 Mini) here - no issues that you describe. I run my laptop with a mouse too as I don't like trackpads.

Re: Trouble with the cursor and mouse

17 Feb 2021 10:09:21

Douglas Cheney

I am running Big Sur on a 2015 iMac with no problems at all, I am booting it from an external SSD through the ThunderBolt 2 port which makes the Mac quite fast, I use a magic track pad as well which I find very good

Re: Trouble with the cursor and mouse

17 Feb 2021 14:26:39

Tony Still

Is it a Bluetooth mouse? I have read of problems with BT on Big Sur though I thought they were on Apple, not Intel, powered machines. BT often gets broken, there are various remedies online but deleting and re-pairing is the place to start.

Slow running is to be expected for a little while after installing but should go away of its own accord.

I have had a variety of software incompatibility problems with Big Sur but only with particular apps. I suppose that could change when I actually install it...

Re: Trouble with the cursor and mouse

22 Feb 2021 12:27:53

Michael Corgan

Solved the problem with the mouse. It is the first time I have had a Magic Mouse, and it was apparently letting me know that it needed recharging. Did that, and it is now fine.

I am certainly planning on having an SSD replace the existing hard drive in the iMac, but lockdown is hindering that for the moment - I have found Hero in Southampton and they seem to be both reasonable and competent. I knew that this refurb 2015 model would likely be slower than my 2007 iMac, as that had an SSD and of course, a simpler version of the OS, but taking 15 seconds to launch Pages etc. is slow, and booting back into Big Sur from the El Capitan partition that I have takes around 8 minutes. I doubt that will be completely remedied by the SSD though and am looking for answers online, but so far have found nothing helpful

Re: Trouble with the cursor and mouse

22 Feb 2021 16:38:08

Douglas Cheney

My 2015 iMac was slow using the internal HD as the spindle speed was slower than my old iMac that's why I went for an external SSD. I was able to get an old LaCie Rugged drive with a Thunderbolt 2 cable connection and substituted the HD in it for a SSD, and now my iMac takes about 30 seconds to start up now

Re: Trouble with the cursor and mouse

23 Feb 2021 08:44:55

Michael Corgan

Thanks for the idea Doug. Food for thought!