Level 1

16 points

Mac Pro 2019: Mouse CURSOR freezes every few minutes

Hello Mac community!

The cursor on my Mac Pro 2019 freezes at irregular intervals for a few seconds at a time. I saw other posts on this, but they appear related to a specific application, low computer specs vis a vis workload, or hard drive failures. Details that might be relevant in my case:

I haven't been able to identify if any application is the cause of this; it seems to happen with nothing else running and nothing particularly strange taking place in Activity Monitor. However, even though I tested this after closing open applications and the issue was still present, I can't say for sure that a specific previously open application doesn't cause the issue to start. I usually have at least Ableton Live, Chrome, Spotify, Splice, and a few other small things running.
Restarting the Mac helps 100% of the time but the issue comes back, sometimes shortly after and sometimes a day or two later.
First Aid in Disk Utility hasn't found any errors.
I have both the magic mouse and trackpad. When the freeze occurs, neither device is able to move the cursor. I have noticed something weird about the trackpad - even at 100% it often doesn't immediately connect to the Mac, and it has had very hard time reading multi finger motions recently - after I try them a few times, it seems to "come back" to normal and works just fine.
Most of the stuff I'm running when the issue occurs runs fine on an old MacBook Pro 2017, so a high end Mac Pro 2019 shouldn't have any issues with the workload.
I'm running:
- 2.5 GHz 28-Core
- 256 GB 2933 Mhz DDR4
- AMD Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB
- Big Sur 11.4, BUT -- the issue has been happening since before I installed Big Sur.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to troubleshoot?

Thank you!

Posted on Jul 25, 2021 10:06 AM

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

140,249 points

Posted on Oct 7, 2021 12:30 PM

Why do I have difficulty with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth devices when USB 3 devices are attached to my computer?

Some USB 3 devices can generate radio frequency interference that can cause Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices operating in the 2.4GHz band to have issues communicating with your computer. Here are some tips to avoid this issue:

• If your USB device has a cable long enough that you can move the device, place it away from your Mac—and make sure not to place it behind your Mac, or near the hinge of its display. The antennas for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are located there, and USB 3 devices placed there might interfere with your wireless connections.

• If you're using adapters or dongles on a Mac computer with Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, plug them into the front port on the left side of your Mac, or into the ports on the right side (if your computer has them). These ports are the farthest away from the antennas, making interference less likely.

• To avoid interference on the 2.4GHz band using Wi-Fi, try using the 5GHz band instead. You can change this on your wireless base station. Bluetooth always uses 2.4GHz, so this alternative isn't available for Bluetooth.

from:

About USB on Mac computers - Apple Support

Resolve Wi-Fi and Bluetooth issues caused by wireless interference

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201542

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25 replies

Flakstone Author

Level 1

16 points

Aug 25, 2021 2:15 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

The issue I have is the same as the other user's but as I already noted, I am using only Apple products, and while the cursor skips, it shouldn't be a CPU issue since the trackpad is able to control the cursor normally at the same time.

I will say that my cursor usually freezes for longer, a noticeable 1/2 to 1 sec or so.

Aug 25, 2021 3:30 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

OK, here is a new screen recording with All Processes showing: https://youtu.be/PkwVxqQrfKw

Both this and the previous video are sorted by % CPU colum with the highest on top.

Looking like it is some kind of USB problem maybe?

Oct 7, 2021 12:05 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I agree.

the computer is under 3 feet from the mouse. Also find it odd that third party peripheral (have tried two versions of the mouse now, v2 and v3) has issues that exactly match what others have described while the apple peripherals have none. Would assume interference would cause equal issues among all of them.

Oct 7, 2021 12:55 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Respectfully you seem to be spamming stock answers that aren’t very helpful.

a realistic pro work station uses multiple displays, hard drives and peripherals at all times.

clearly there seems to be a further issue with Mac Pros specifically based on this thread.

Flakstone Author

Level 1

16 points

Oct 31, 2021 5:26 PM in response to brechdofragen

I will add one more thing to the comedy because *a;dslkfj*:

This is the only computer in the house that has constant issues with internet. I have spent the last few hours with verizon trouble shooting and no idea what's up. Side by side with other devices, some websites just won't load at speed or refuse to load altogether (e.g., facebook, occasionally reddit, etc.) - browser doesn't matter, time of day, restart or not, I tried everything.

For the same website, one of three things happens:

infrastructure loads but video previews, pictures, etc. all freeze up and i get the browser loading animation
website loads but it's just text links to everything that would normally be on the site
it says i don't have internet, but when i hit reload, within a few seconds to a few minutes the site loads normally

I feel that if the internet didn't exist period I would be going nuts right now. is this a ghost??? what could possibly be wrong? Happy Halloween I guess.

Aug 25, 2021 12:22 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Yeah, memory is all good:

And cpu usage video here: https://youtu.be/Uqq-VwEZZzs

Flakstone Author

Level 1

16 points

Oct 31, 2021 4:10 PM in response to Flakstone

I will say that owning a machine that's worth tens of thousands of dollars and struggling with "why is my mouse freezing" without quick non-phone based support is a nice bit of dark comedy.

Oct 31, 2021 4:54 PM in response to Flakstone

Can’t agree more. Meanwhile I’m using a wired gaming mouse with a computer that has more ram than most laptops have storage

Flakstone Author

Level 1

16 points

Oct 31, 2021 5:51 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

wifi. Please don't say "there is interference" :)

(jk)

Brian_P7

Community Specialist

Aug 22, 2021 6:07 PM in response to Flakstone

Thank you for following up with us. Do you have any other Bluetooth or wireless devices nearby that may be causing interference? Try moving those devices further away or disabling to see if the issue persists.

All the best.

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Mac Pro 2019: Mouse CURSOR freezes every few minutes