Mouse Pointer Keeps Disappearing

Hi Ashley,

I use an Acer T232 Touchscreen since it makes authoring in Storyline incredibly faster. Tasks such as working with layers, triggers, etc, are twice if not three times faster. I'm on Windows 10.

I'll have to pay more attention to exactly when the pointer goes incognito! It usually seems after a while of very busy work. I want to say there is a particular task that may be causing it, but now I'm not sure. I'll make note and follow up on this discussion when it happens again as I'm pretty sure it will.

Doug

Thanks, Doug and if you're able to narrow it down further that'll help us investigate! 

Also, with Storyline I do always like to point out some of the guidelines and best practices here that'll help prevent the odd behavior. Worth checking that you're adhering to those too, especially closing Storyline and allowing it to have a proper rest each night. 😴

Same issue here with a Surface Pro 3, the problem did not happen before. Must be related to a recent update.

Thanks for chiming in Philippe. I've been in Rise for the last few days so have not encountered the issue in Storyline. If you notice at what point this happens to you, please add to this discussion by including details and perhaps Articulate can do something about it. I'll do the same.

Regards,

Doug

I've pretty much narrowed the cause down to working with triggers and variables. Still haunted by the 'incognito mouse pointer'.

Any help is appreciated.

Doug

Hi Doug,

We're still here and would love to help.

Can you share more details on the triggers or variables that are causing this behavior? Any steps you've gone through that would help me replicate this would be ideal! 

With your permission, we're also always willing to take a look at your project file to investigate what's happening. You can share it publicly here, or send it along to our Support Team here. We’ll delete it when done troubleshooting. 

Ashley,

I submitted a case and attached a file for you review. As stated earlier in this discussion, there are times when the mouse is required such as when choosing an item from a drop-down menu, etc...

Most of the time I am using my Acer Touchscreen monitor to complete tasks. It seems that after about 15 minutes of using the touchscreen, the mouse pointer becomes invisible. I noticed this yesterday when working heavily with triggers and variables.

Doug

Thanks, Doug and I see that Christopher has been assigned your case and is taking a look. It looks like he sent some additional questions via email, so you'll want to respond as a part of the case. I'll follow along too! 

I encountered the same yesterday, a "missing mouse" while in development. I was using the trackpad on  my HP Elitebook. After a few minutes of the missing mouse, I grabbed the HP bluetooth, and still encountered the missing mouse.

The only solution was to CTRL S, and close Storyline. When I restarted, the mouse reappeared.

Hello Johnny and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)

Thanks for letting us know that you ran into a similar issue of a disappearing mouse cursor as well.

Do you know what functionality of Storyline you were using when you ran into this issue? I'm seeing that the variables button/window is what others have been using when running into the issue and curious if you saw the same.

My disappearing mouse was occurring while I was editing text slides. We were not using triggers in this file.

Thank you,

Johnny Wazney
Instructional Designer & Learning Consultant
Fidelity National Home Warranty
1-800-308-1420 Ext. 7266
johnny.wazney@fnf.com
www.homewarranty.com

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Hi Johnny,

Thanks for that insight. Is it only this file that you're running into the challenge with or anything you're authoring in Storyline? Can you check what update of SToryline you're using? You can check by going to the "Help" Tab -> "About Articulate Storyline".

The latest is Storyline 360, build 3.27.18822.0. 

Also, I noticed that your email signature came through when you replied via email. You can remove that if you would like by clicking Edit beneath your response. Here’s a quick Peek video if you need help.

I recorded my screen and have determined that the mouse pointer disappears in Storyline360 immediately after previewing my work. You can see here. I can rectify the problem by closing the app and then re-opening it. This gets a little tiresome however.

I am using Windows 10 with an Acer T232HL Touchscreen monitor.

Hi, Doug. Thank you for your latest insight!

I'm going to add it to this issue's report as we continue to investigate. I know this oddity is impacting your work, so I promise to keep you posted as new information becomes available. Here's an inside look at how we tackle bugs like this one!

I am having the same issue. For me, it seems to occur when after previewing a specific slide, which is a freeform drag and drop. I am also using Windows 10 on a Surface Pro 2 laptop. 

Thank you for keeping me in the loop with any updates! 

Welcome, Joni!

I'm sorry you're at this roadblock, and appreciate you sharing that detail with us. I'm going to share it on our report so we can continue to dig deeper into this issue's cause.

You're in the right place, and we'll keep this discussion posted on any new developments!

Same here. I getting beyond frustrated with this. It started happening this week. It's taken me 3 hrs to add animation, color and move 3 text boxes. It keeps disappearing and it only works for about 5 mins later after restarting my computer and SL, but even then it may not work. 

I have a Lenovo Flex 5. Lenovos are horrible computers to begin with, but this only happens in SL. 

Hi Rahny, 

Thanks for sharing that you're running into an issue with this as well. The issue has been reported to our team and seems specific to touch screen hardware.

You're in the right place to be notified of any updates we have to share.

I just started using Storyline360 on my touchscreen device (Lenovo Yoga 730) yesterday, and have ran into the same issue. The mouse pointer disappears after previewing content. As others have said, the only work around so far is to save my work with the ghost pointer (it still lets me see where the ghost pointer is hovering over) and then close the program and re-open Storyline360. I've also tried to see if maybe it's a computer issue with my mouse, but it works fine when using the Internet or navigating outside of Storyline.

Hi Brittany,

Thanks for reaching out and sharing what you are running into as well.

We are aware that some users are having issues with a disappearing mouse cursor on touch screen devices and this has been reported to our team. This conversation is attached so that we can share any updates with you here.

Hello! I've recently started at a new company and was issued a Dell Inspiron 15 3000 2-in-1 with touchscreen running windows 10, and I have experienced the same issue with ghost pointer- I'm running at about 9gb RAM usage with only storyline 360, and my required system programs, Skype for business, dropbox, and outlook open. I am not allowed to close those other programs. 

I also find that the mouse pointer disappears but when I hover over any button on the screen it highlights and I can guess where the pointer is, but it makes working on anything nearly impossible. 

Should I request a non- touchscreen computer, or is this something that will be fixed? 

Hi Sarah,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing what you are encountering. I am sorry that you are running into this snag as well!

I am adding your comments to our report as our team continues to investigate. We're careful about testing new updates to make sure we don't put other features at risk, so I don't have an exact timeline to share at the moment.

You're in the right place, and we'll be sure to provide any new updates as soon as we can!

Was this issue ever fixed?  I am having the same issue.  I have a surface boot 2 and when I previous a course for a mobile device, I swipe the screen to progress my slides and the cursor disappears.

Hello Steven!

Thanks for checking in on this bug! We're still seeing an error with the mouse cursor disappearing when using a touchscreen monitor on variables panel in our latest update; Storyline 360 Update 40 (Build 3.40.22208.0). 

I don't have any updated information to share about a fix. We are currently prioritizing other bug fixes for upcoming releases so we'll report back to this discussion when this makes it on the roadmap.