Comment 9 for bug 140503

I was able to partially work around this:

1. open KDE's systemsettings app
2. select "Keyboard & Mouse" > Mouse > Cursor Theme
3. select a DIFFERENT cursor than the current (desired) one
4. click Apply
5. re-select the desired theme
6. click Apply again

I'm using the DMZ (Black) GNOME theme, if that's relevant.

It's possible the bug is with:

A) how that cursor theme's content is laid out
B) the instantiation of GNOME cursor themes in KDE's settings
C) incomplete instantiation of GNOME cursor themes in KDE's settings (even with the above workaround I still see the KDE Oxygen cursor theme's "busy" art when a Qt application is busy)
D) the process for installing or upgrading any of the involved packages (this install of Lucid was upgraded from Karmic and so on a few versions back, not a fresh install)

Hope this helps.