Changing cursors does not work properly

[Matt Pharoah]

Binary package hint: xorg

When changing cursors from the appearance preferences in Ubuntu 10.4 (this worked fine in Ubuntu 9.10 on the same system, so this is only a problem in Lucid Lynx) the cursor is not completely switched. This happens both when changing to custom cursors and when changing to built-in cursors such as DMZ-Black.

What happens is that the correct cursor is used sometimes (I found that the text selection I-beam cursor was always used correctly, and the correct cursors display when overtop of certain programs such as firefox, but in most cases the default DMZ-White cursors are shown instead of the ones it should be showing.

I managed to "fix" this problem by changing the symbolic link in /etc/alternatives/x-cursor-theme from /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursor.theme to point to the cursor.theme file of the cursor set I want it to show (creating it if it does not exist). This solution, however, would affect all users and this must be done every time the cursor is changed.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: xorg 1:7.5+5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon May 17 18:01:01 2010
DkmsStatus:
 nvidia-173, 173.14.22, 2.6.32-22-generic, x86_64: installed
 nvidia-current, 195.36.15, 2.6.32-22-generic, x86_64: installed
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=5dd47f3a-b348-4c2a-a31f-d05f7c5e8cc6 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
dmi.bios.date: 06/23/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: F.08
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: 30F4
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: 99.47
dmi.chassis.type: 14
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvrF.08:bd06/23/2008:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPPaviliondv7NotebookPC:pvrF.08:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn30F4:rvr99.47:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct14:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC
dmi.product.version: F.08
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: x86_64
 kernel: 2.6.32-22-generic

[Matt Pharoah (mpharoah)]

If you're having the same problem as me, here's a shell script that should fix the problem (you'll have to restart after using it for it to take effect... actually you can probably just restart X instead of the whole computer).

To use it, just give the name of the cursor theme you want to change to as an argument.

[Marcelo Ramos (marcelor)]

I'm having the same problem (Intel graphic card).

[Matt Pharoah (mpharoah)]

I'm moving this back to Xorg since it's been reproduced on a non-nvidia graphics card (I'm sure the problem has nothing to do with graphics drivers, but rather whatever program is responsible for drawing the cursor.)

[Marcelo Ramos (marcelor)]

I just discovered that the problem only happens with Compiz enabled. Right now I'm disabling the Compiz plugins one by one to find if one of them is the culprit.

[Marcelo Ramos (marcelor)]

It seems not related with any plugin in particular, just with Compiz itself.

[Marcelo Ramos (marcelor)]

Marked this bug as duplicate of #459647.

[Marcelo Ramos (marcelor)]

FYI, the problem is incorrectly applied patch to Compiz (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/459647/comments/44).