1

The way to consistently see the symptoms of mouse cursor turning into a bigger black box:

LUbuntu 24.04.2 LTS in VirtualBox on Windows

Steps:

  1. Mouse cursor is visible

  2. Go to “Start” menu “Lock Screen”

  3. Once screen locked, mouse cursor is still visible

  4. Log in back

  5. There’s guaranteed “black block” instead of the mouse cursor.

The “almost solution” in my case was making /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the content

Section "Device"
   Identifier "device1"
   Option "SWcursor"
EndSection

The “solution” is almost as it wasn’t: the cursor didn’t disappear anymore but it started to behave worse (!) if moved over e.g. close button of the terminal window in the right upper corner, to the point that I’ve deleted that file and I just “try to not lock the screen” for now.

So no external programs needed to reproduce that effect – I hope somebody else can use this to reproduce, diagnose and fix it “right”, if possible.

This installation was an upgraded LUbuntu 22 LTS, on which it never happened.

2

This topic was moved from another very similar topic because this one actually has different symptoms.

In the linked post, the mouse cursor was entirely invisible. It wasn’t just black. You could mouse over a white or grey area and you would not observe a black cursor.

So something else is going on here.

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3

Which one is it? Ubuntu or Lubuntu? Are you saying you had no issues on Lubuntu 22.x but the issue is specific to vanilla Ubuntu 24.04? Just out of curiosity, have you tried Lubuntu 24.04?

I’m having trouble understanding this behavior. Could you explain it in more detail or provide a video?

Have you checked the journal or Xorg.0.log for errors?

4

Re: which was it:

Sorry for confusion. I’ve definitely installed LUbuntu, I’ve upgraded to a new version from there, but that was my copy paste of a part of:

~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
Release:	24.04
Codename:	noble

as I don’t remember any of details from there, just that it’s LUbuntu 24 LTS. If there’s a better command output to quote, I’ll remember it for the next time.

5

re: “how was it worse”

moving the mouse is supposed to be smooth, no matter over which screen items it happens.

however, when I’m trying to navigate over some screen elements like these close buttons or window edges, in that software mode the cursor became “jerky-jumping” instead of smooth. Like that some imaginary power teleports it a bunch of pixels away from where it should be based on the mouse movement. It’s definitely somehow triggered by the software and not caused by the hardware inputs, and it was especially observable around the close button of the LXTerminal screen.

6

Try running neofetch to get some clearer details on the system.

That makes a little more sense regarding the behavior.

Can you please provide a screenshot of the “black box?”

Question, though: did you mean QTerminal or did you actually install LXTerminal?

7

neofetch seems horrible, even redirecting to the file its output can’t be copy pasted as a text?

8

Works for me:

           `-mddhhhhhhhhhddmss`             wxl@amorphous 
        ./mdhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.         ------------- 
     :mdhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhm`       OS: Lubuntu 24.10 x86_64 
   :ymhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyhhhhhhhhhy:      Host: iMac11,2 1.0 
  `odhyyyhhhhhhhhhy+-````./syhhhhhhhho`     Kernel: 6.11.0-14-generic 
 `hhy..:oyhhhhhhhy-`:osso/..:/++oosyyyh`    Uptime: 2 days, 15 hours, 37 mins 
 dhhs   .-/syhhhhs`shhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyhs    Packages: 2184 (dpkg), 11 (snap) 
:hhhy`  yso/:+syhy/yhhhhhshhhhhhhhhhhhhh:   Shell: bash 5.2.32 
hhhhho. +hhhys++oyyyhhhhh-yhhhhhhhhhhhhhs   Resolution: 1920x1080 
hhhhhhs-`/syhhhhyssyyhhhh:-yhhhhhhhhhhhhh   DE: LXQt 2.0.0 
hhhhhhs  `:/+ossyyhyyhhhhs -yhhhhhhhhhhhh   WM: Openbox 
hhhhhhy/ `syyyssyyyyhhhhhh: :yhhhhhhhhhhs   Theme: Arc-Darker [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3] 
:hhhhhhyo:-/osyhhhhhhhhhhho  ohhhhhhhhhh:   Icons: ePapirus [GTK2/3] 
 sdhhhhhhhyyssyyhhhhhhhhhhh+  +hhhhhhhhs    Terminal: tmux 
 `shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy+` .yhhhhhhhh`    CPU: Intel i3 540 (4) @ 3.059GHz 
  +sdhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyo/. `/yhhhhhhhd`     GPU: AMD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 
   `:shhhhhhhhhh+---..``.:+yyhhhhhhh:       Memory: 6274MiB / 7931MiB 
     `:mdhhhhhh/.syssyyyyhhhhhhhd:`
        `+smdhhh+shhhhhhhhhhhhdm`                                   
           `sNmdddhhhhhhhddm-`

If you have xclip installed, you can just neofetch | xclip -selection c and then come back to your browser and paste like normal.

9

I just had the same issue with lubuntu in vb running windows I upgraded virtual box to the latest version and that fixed the issue.

3 Likes
10

This is output of the redirection to a file:

e[?25le[?7le[0me[34me[1m           `-mddhhhhhhhhhddmss`
        ./mdhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
     :mdhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhm`
   :ymhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyhhhhhhhhhy:
  `odhyyyhhhhhhhhhy+-````./syhhhhhhhho`
 `hhy..:oyhhhhhhhy-`:osso/..:/++oosyyyh`
 dhhs   .-/syhhhhs`shhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyhs
:hhhy`  yso/:+syhy/yhhhhhshhhhhhhhhhhhhh:
hhhhho. +hhhys++oyyyhhhhh-yhhhhhhhhhhhhhs
hhhhhhs-`/syhhhhyssyyhhhh:-yhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhs  `:/+ossyyhyyhhhhs -yhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhy/ `syyyssyyyyhhhhhh: :yhhhhhhhhhhs
:hhhhhhyo:-/osyhhhhhhhhhhho  ohhhhhhhhhh:
 sdhhhhhhhyyssyyhhhhhhhhhhh+  +hhhhhhhhs
 `shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy+` .yhhhhhhhh`
  +sdhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyo/. `/yhhhhhhhd`
   `:shhhhhhhhhh+---..``.:+yyhhhhhhh:
     `:mdhhhhhh/.syssyyyyhhhhhhhd:`
        `+smdhhh+shhhhhhhhhhhhdm`
           `sNmdddhhhhhhhddm-`e[0m
e[20Ae[9999999De[44Ce[0me[1me[34me[1mje[0m@e[34me[1mj-VirtualBoxe[0m 
e[44Ce[0m------------------e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mOSe[0me[0m:e[0m Lubuntu 24.04.2 LTS x86_64e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mHoste[0me[0m:e[0m VirtualBox 1.2e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mKernele[0me[0m:e[0m 6.8.0-53-generice[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mUptimee[0me[0m:e[0m 59 secse[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mPackagese[0me[0m:e[0m 3255 (dpkg), 11 (snap)e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mShelle[0me[0m:e[0m bash 5.2.21e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mResolutione[0me[0m:e[0m 1470x967e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mDEe[0me[0m:e[0m LXQt 1.4.0e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mWMe[0me[0m:e[0m Openboxe[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mWM Themee[0me[0m:e[0m Onyxe[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mThemee[0me[0m:e[0m Breeze [GTK3]e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mIconse[0me[0m:e[0m ePapirus [GTK3]e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mTerminale[0me[0m:e[0m lxterminale[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mTerminal Fonte[0me[0m:e[0m Monospace 11e[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mCPUe[0me[0m:e[0m Intel i7-3630QM (3) @ 2.394GHze[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mGPUe[0me[0m:e[0m 00:02.0 VMware SVGA II Adaptere[0m 
e[44Ce[0me[34me[1mMemorye[0me[0m:e[0m 553MiB / 2468MiBe[0m
11

I don’t remember I ever tried to install an alternative terminal. I’m just using the same thing I’ve used in LTS 22, it must have been default there?

12

Virtual box in windows probably needs upgrading, then install the latest guest addition s as well, I had to install a sdk for virtual box on windows before my virtual machines would show up.

I hope this fixes your issue like it did mine. I now turn you back over to wxl for all things lubuntu.

13

Thanks Wild_Man, it will most probably help somebody, but for me, the one I’m using is the latest version which works on my Windows. It’s impossible upgrade to higher version of VirtualBox on this machine as it would require a newer Windows (e.g. 10), which can’t be installed.

14

LXTerminal hasn’t been the default in Lubuntu since 18.04. I wouldn’t be surprised if that isn’t your problem.

What’s weird is you do have LXQt. Did you upgrade from 18.04 at some point? That was a transition we did not support and expressly stated as such in the release notes of 18.10.

Anyways, try fastfetch. It’s better and will be replacing neofetch anyways. But do it in a different terminal (QTerminal). And, in particular, run fastfetch --pipe true --logo-type none:

wxl@amorphous
-------------
OS: Ubuntu oracular 24.10 x86_64
Host: iMac11,2 (1.0)
Kernel: Linux 6.11.0-14-generic
Uptime: 2 days, 16 hours, 1 min
Packages: 2179 (dpkg), 10 (snap)
Shell: bash 5.2.32
Display (Color LCD): 1920x1080 @ 60Hz
DE: LXQT
WM: Openbox (X11)
Theme: kvantum [QT], Arc-Darker [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
Icons: ePapirus [QT], ePapirus [GTK2/3]
Font: Ubuntu (11pt) [QT], Ubuntu (11pt) [GTK2/3]
Cursor: breeze (22px)
Terminal: tmux 3.4
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3         540 (4) @ 3.06 GHz
GPU: AMD Mobility Radeon HD 4670
Memory: 6.54 GiB / 7.75 GiB (84%)
Swap: 1.25 GiB / 3.00 GiB (42%)
Disk (/): 22.96 GiB / 1.79 TiB (1%) - ext4
Disk (/media/wxl/CIRCUITPY): 199.00 KiB / 6.97 MiB (3%) - vfat [External]
Locale: en_US.UTF-8
15

To be clear on what’s needed to help with this further:

  1. An answer to the upgrading from 18.04 (or earlier) question.
  2. Screenshot of the black cursor.
  3. System info.
16

I don’t think it’s in any way related to LXTerminal per se. It could be that before I’ve used 22 LTS (on which there were no described problems) I’ve used the previous LTS too, so 18 LTS definitely possible (on which there were surely no described problems) and I’ve surely never tried to touch 18.10 (I’m using LTS exactly to avoid all the glitches introduced every 6 months!). And I’ve decided to avoid to even try to find from where I could install a newer replacement for a tool which I consider has purely insane defaults anyway (colorized ascii art is there obviously much more important than the information about the system, almost a trolling quality there). So that’s it from me – thanks everybody, take care!

17

No, that doesn’t relate to the problem at hand per se, but it could indicate a larger problem. It could also mean problems with neofetch defaults.

One of the reasons we didn’t support upgrading from the LXDE versions of Lubuntu to the LXQt ones is because they could lead to some weird problems we couldn’t predict. Just because you didn’t have problems didn’t mean you didn’t have a problem waiting for the right circumstance to occur.

sudo apt install fastfetch

This is why I suggested fastfetch --pipe true --logo-type none.

If you can’t be bothered to install a tool: neofetch --color_blocks off --backend off does the same thing as the command above. fastfetch actually provides more accurate information and more of it by default, too, so it’s a better option.

Beyond all that, a screenshot of the cursor would be helpful.

18

this is how it looks like after the lock and then login.
image

1 Like
19

Yes, that is definitively different behavior that my original post.

Could you provide the additional information asked for so we can help diagnose this?

1 Like
20

I believe now that the first version installed was LUbuntu 18 LTS.

~$ sudo apt install fastfetch
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package fastfetch

$ neofetch --color_blocks off --backend off
OS: Lubuntu 24.04.2 LTS x86_64 
Host: VirtualBox 1.2 
Kernel: 6.8.0-53-generic 
Uptime: 5 mins 
Packages: 3255 (dpkg), 11 (snap) 
Shell: bash 5.2.21 
Resolution: 1470x967 
DE: LXQt 1.4.0 
WM: Openbox 
WM Theme: Onyx 
Theme: Breeze [GTK3] 
Icons: ePapirus [GTK3] 
Terminal: qterminal 
Terminal Font: Ubuntu Mono 12 
CPU: Intel i7-3630QM (3) @ 2.394GHz 
GPU: 00:02.0 VMware SVGA II Adapter 
Memory: 602MiB / 2468MiB

This is definitely the first of all LUbuntu LTS versions I’ve used in the VM that has this mouse cursor behavior.
These options for that “neofetch” tool still produce all the color codes in the output when redirected to the file:

e[?25le[?7le[0me[1me[34me[1miane[0m@e[34me[1mian-VirtualBoxe[0m 
e[0m------------------e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mOSe[0me[0m:e[0m Lubuntu 24.04.2 LTS x86_64e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mHoste[0me[0m:e[0m VirtualBox 1.2e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mKernele[0me[0m:e[0m 6.8.0-53-generice[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mUptimee[0me[0m:e[0m 5 minse[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mPackagese[0me[0m:e[0m 3255 (dpkg), 11 (snap)e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mShelle[0me[0m:e[0m bash 5.2.21e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mResolutione[0me[0m:e[0m 1470x967e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mDEe[0me[0m:e[0m LXQt 1.4.0e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mWMe[0me[0m:e[0m Openboxe[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mWM Themee[0me[0m:e[0m Onyxe[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mThemee[0me[0m:e[0m Breeze [GTK3]e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mIconse[0me[0m:e[0m ePapirus [GTK3]e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mTerminale[0me[0m:e[0m qterminale[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mTerminal Fonte[0me[0m:e[0m Ubuntu Mono 12e[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mCPUe[0me[0m:e[0m Intel i7-3630QM (3) @ 2.394GHze[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mGPUe[0me[0m:e[0m 00:02.0 VMware SVGA II Adaptere[0m 
e[0me[34me[1mMemorye[0me[0m:e[0m 602MiB / 2468MiBe[0m 

e[?25he[?7h

To produce something readable I still had to select / copy / paste directly from the terminal. I still consider that tool user hostile, and can’t wait to remove it. And the fastfetch tool is clearly not in the default repos.

1 Like