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journonyc
Contributor
Contributor

Mouse problems w/fusion 5?

I upgraded to Mountain Lion. I upgraded to the trail of Fusion 5 professional (standard trial version not available). Running Windows Vista. Now my mouse, as the cursor runs over any line that separates sections in Outlook, for example, makes a black square appear and then quickly disappear. So as I open an email, for example, move the cursor from text to recipient to some other part of the email, I keep seeing quick flashes of black -- so annoying. Also as I move the cursor anywhere on the Window, the text describing what I've quickly moved over pops up. I've changed the mouse preference from games to never games, but these annoying black boxes keep appearing everywhere as I move the mouse around. I upgraded because fusion 4 became so so so slow. Hope there's a fix, otherwise I'm getting rid of Windows & Fusion for good and hoping to find only Mac software for everything I need for my small business. Anyone have the same problem and a fix?

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djphat2000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am having the same issue with my XP vm.  Not so much with Win 7 (64bit).  Or at least haven't noticed it on Windows 7.  However, with XP.  When I use RDC within it.  I get the black box all the time on any RDC screen I have up.  Its something I use a lot so, its VERY annoying.  I usally have 2 or 3 RDC sessions up on my XP vm at any given time.  And not having the mouse curser working properly can cause issues when trying to work.

This issue didn't happen under version 4.  So, it has to be a new bug (not sure why it wasn't found).  I also updated the compatibility for each VM (Compatible with VMware Fusion 5 or higher).  Not sure if that may have caused it to happen or not.  But, hopefully there will be a fix for this soon.

Also as a bit of a work around.  I lowerd by one tick the hardware accelleration under Winodws XP (right click, Properties, Settings, Advanced, Troubleshoot), and that helps.  But, I can't move my mouse out of the full screen XP without "control, command" to free it from the screen.  Can't work that way with 3 screens all day!!

If it helps, my system specs:

Mac Pro4,1

Dual Quad core Xeon @ 2.26GHz

24GB Ram

2x Nvidia Geforce 285 GTX (Mac Edition)

Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.1 (same thing happened in 10.8.0)

2x Intel SSD 3G 600GB, and 1x 750GB 7200 HD (Time Machine backup drive)

SmallTree Fiber NIC 1GB (Intel chipset)

VMware Fusion 5 (Windows XP x86, and Windows 7 x64)

3 Dell 24" Monitors 1920x1200 @ 60Hz

Each VM is on its own screen at full res and color

System is pretty bad ass I know Smiley Happy

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Blahdiblah
Contributor
Contributor

I get the same issue- black boxes appearing briefly when moving the mouse over text. It doesn't bother me too much, but it is a new bug since upgrading, so it's annoying (not as annoying as the issue with the VM flipping back and forth between spaces when you open windows from the same app in different spaces, though)

Using Fusion 5 with retina MBP and Windows XP SP3.

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djphat2000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Seems that if I use UNITY mode, the issue goes away.  However, its not as fast in UNITY mode (never really was!).  However, now that that issue is not an issue in this mode.  I'm leaving it in there for now.  PLUS, I have now noticed that I can run 2 VM's (XP and 7) in UNITY mode on there own screens.  And I can move windows across all of them (Still not as smooth as I would like!).  I don't beleive that worked before.  I think I could only do one VM that way if I wanted to use Unity.  So, not sure if that is the way its suppost to work, but at leats that feature is usable to me. 

Any help from VMware would be nice!

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Stone1269
Contributor
Contributor

I am seeing the same problem with two different Windows XP VMs.  It is most noticeable in Quicken 2011, the mouse will flicker erratically or turn into a 'black box' whenever I move the mouse over the search button at the top.  It is also noticeable in Chrome, and almost any text entry field where you can click to enter text.

I have removed and reinstalled Vmware Tools in both VMs without any change.  On mine, if I start the VM in Unity mode, the problem is not as noticeable, but if I start the VM normally, and THEN switch to Unity, it is just as noticeable as it is in full screen.

I am running Fusion 5 on a Retina Macbook Pro.

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Stone1269
Contributor
Contributor

I have found that if I set 'Always optimize mouse for games' in the general preferences, this problem goes away.  I cannot move my mouse out of a VM window without releasing it first, or access the Fusion menu by moving my mouse all the way to the top of the screen with this option set, but at least the annoying flickering seems to be gone....

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journonyc
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks, I'll try that. I was on the phone on Monday with tech support when Fusion crashed (while deleting an old snapshot, while it was cleaning old files, froze, that page showing snapshots disappeared & I got locked into Fusion & couldn't quit). He got onto my computer to help fix it, I showed him the mouse problem, too, & he said "Oh, that is annoying." He was about to do something with VM tools but then said I first needed more space on my virtual machine--I needed 5 extra gigs (not only 1 free gig) for the OS to work properly (!?), so we never did resolve the mouse problem. I'm hoping he reported it for a future patch.

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djphat2000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

support has emailed me about this issue.  I sent them a screen shot of the problem.  However, my issue has changed.  I no longer get the black box in my XP VM when using RDC.  It just stopped.  I've got 3 of them open.  I did leave both my VM's in Unity mode for a while, and then went back to full screen on each.  Not sure if that jogged it back to working right.  But, its working right.  However, the black box does come up at times in Win 7 now, when it really didn't before.  Not as bad as it was, but it does happen.  So, I was only able to send a screen shot of it under the new senerio.

It does seem as though they are looking into it.  Thanks guys! Smiley Happy

I attached the picture here just for reference. 

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djphat2000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

There is an update.  going to check it out and see if it fixes it.

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Stone1269
Contributor
Contributor

I have tried the update.  It doesn't fix it on mine.  I still have to use the 'always optimize mouse for games' setting....

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mm201
Contributor
Contributor

I have this issue. Randomly, the mouse will show a black box with corrupt contents for the first pixel my mouse travels inside a text field. Moving the mouse a pixel will make the effect go away, but otherwise it remains visible, which allowed me to take this picture. There seems to be troubles autodetecting the switch to a software cursor, or the change in bit depth.

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Harjo
Contributor
Contributor

I have the exact same issue with my VM Windows 7 SP1.

very annoying....

EDIT: yes, setting the mouse to: Always optimize mouse for games, fixes this specefic issue, but introduce others.

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wrhahn
Contributor
Contributor

I have captured pictures and Videos of this problem.

You may see those in the following VMWare Doc, based off of the Discussion Thread I started before finding this thread:

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-20382

Thank you.

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xtremesniper
Contributor
Contributor

Yup, I have the same problem and upgrading to 5.0.1 did not solve it.

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Dr_Gary
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Any update on this?

I still have this issue as well using Fusion 5.01 on a clean install of OSX 10.8.1.

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djphat2000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've been getting support calls on this.  However, last update was that it's not fixed yet.  They said to update to 5.0.1 and that did help (Like everyone else here).  Also to turn off Accelerated 3D graphics.  That helped a little, but still present with the Black Box issue. I haven't updated one of our systems yet due to this issue (or to Mountain Lion for that matter). 

Maybe its time to just let the VM have direct access to the GFX hardward?  I see its happened on the VDI (ESX) side.  I know I would MUCH rather it just use the hardware directly.  Especially since I have more then 1 GFX card in my Mac.  I could dedicate one of them to it.  Smiley Happy

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Washburn76
Contributor
Contributor

Count me in as having this exact same issue. I upgraded from OSX 10.7 to 10.8 on a Late 2008 model MacBook 13" unit. Everything was going fine until after I upgrade Fusion 4 to Fusion 5. I'm running a VM of Windows XP SP3 with all updates applied. I even went so far as to update the DirectX End-User runtime files. It didn't help.

My video adapter is listed as a VMware SVGA II with driver version 11.9.1.0 (dated Feb 17, 2012).

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utahRed5
Contributor
Contributor

After installing the VMware update, I'm getting the same problem. I'm using a Windows 7 Pro guest. I am not using Unity. The mouse wheel most often triggers the problem. It's so frequent that the guest OS has become nearly unusable.

I'm using Mtn Lion. I uninstalled VMware Tools from my Guest. Then, I uninstalled VMware 5.0.1 from OS X. I re-installed VMware 5.0.0, fired up the guest, and installed VMware Tools. The mouse seems to be working fine, now. It looks like it was a problem with the 5.0.1 patch.

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wrhahn
Contributor
Contributor

This problem happens on my system with VMWare Fusion V5.0 and V5.0.1 with a Win 7 Pro Guest.

And I agree with some of the others on this thread that it happens so frequently and to such a severe degree that it makes the Guest unusable.

P.S. If you Google "VMWare V5 Bug" the top 3 hits show this problem in action, including YouTube videos of it.

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djphat2000
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

HOPEFULLY!!!  They are working on a fix.  Haven't heard back from support on this recently.  So, I guess they are stumped too. 

Any word on this from a Moderator or Admin?  Just to keep us up to date?  I'm currently just dealing with it.  As I have to work with it.  I keep a Win 7 and XP VM running all the time on my Mac, and they both get used quite a bit.  Its VERY helpful for my workflow.  And this bug is really BUGGIN US!  Smiley Happy

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