(REGRESSION) Weird mouse pointer alignment problem in one application

[ttabi]

I'm seeing a really weird mouse pointer issue that happens only in one application.  I'm running VMware Player 16.2.1 for Linux, and the VM is Windows 10.  The app is Sketchup Make 2017, a 3D modeling tool.

In Sketchup, it appears that the mouse pointer is drawn about 10-20 pixels to the left of where it's actually pointing.  That is, the pointer looks like it's pointing at a specific position, but Windows and Sketchup act as if it's pointing somewhere else. 

I've attached a picture of the problem.  I had to take a picture of the screen using my camera because when I use a screen shot tool, the screen shot shows the mouse pointer in the correct position!  This leads me to suspect that the problem is with the mouse emulation in VMware Workstation.

In the picture, the blue line is being drawn.  You can see that the tip of the pencil is not near the line itself, but it should be.

What's weird is that this only happens in the drawing window of Sketchup.  The application menus work fine -- the mouse pointer is not misaligned there.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on?  VMware Workstation Player is really limited in terms of customization (most of the Google searches I've seen provide tips that only work on regular VMware Workstation.

[ttabi]

BTW, this problem does not occur with Player 16.1.2 build-17966106, so this is a REGRESSION.  I'm going to stick with 16.1.2 for now.

[Dave707]

I too am seeing a very similar problem with the VMware Workstation Player 16.2.x branch.  I have been able to repeat this problem on Ubuntu 20.04 through 21.10 hosts and on two different machines, a Xeon desktop and a Alienware laptop.  Both are running the latest NVIDIA binary drivers (510.47.03), but the problem existed with older drivers.  The previous Workstation Player 16.1 .x version does not exhibit the issue.

The mouse alignment problem shows up when running the LTSpice circuit simulation program from Analog Devices.  In this program you have to click on signals to display the simulation results on a scope.  The mouse pointer looks to be aligned over the proper signal marker but the system records the click at a point offset from the mouse pointer.  It is interesting that this problem occurs no matter if I'm running LTSpice natively in a WIndows 10 guest or running it under a Wine emulation layer inside a Linux (Ubuntu) guest.  I think the problem is related to LTSpice changing the cursor from a pointer to a custom bitmap.  I think there is something about the way the custom mouse pointer bitmap is being handled that is causing the offset problem.  The Sketchup Make 2017 modeling tool that is also experiencing the problem looks to be doing the same thing in that the mouse pointer is a pencil instead of a standard pointer.

I am hoping the clue with the application changing the mouse pointer helps identify the source of the problem.  I have been able to get used to just aiming off the place I need to click, but it is definitely an annoying bug.

[ttabi]

For the record, I have an AMD GPU, so the problem is not GPU-specific.

"I think the problem is related to LTSpice changing the cursor from a pointer to a custom bitmap."  -- that makes sense.

[ttabi]

This problem still exists in VMWare Player 17.0.1.

[ttabi · Accepted solution]

I need to run a couple more tests, but this appears to be fixed in 17.5.  It only took two years!

Update: I've confirmed on two different systems that 17.5 fixes the bug for me.

@Dave707I know it's been a year and a half, but can you try 17.5?