Xfce Forum

jcoppens

Member

Registered: 2017-11-18

Posts: 5

Cursor (pointer) not transmitting in Google Meet. XFCE problem?

I'm just asking - I've been am XFCE fan for years.

I've been trying to use Google Meet for my classes at the university, and my students report
they cannot see my mouse cursor, which makes is very hard to point and interract.

I'm trying to investigate the cause of this issue. The following tests/reports:

- I've tried a meet with another machine, and indeed, the cursor is not shown remotely.

- Strangest of all: Zoom sharing works perfectly - including cursor.

- I've heard a couple of comments indicating Ubuntu, using its standard window manager,
(not Xubuntu/XFCE) seems to work too.

- For some strange reason, venerable 'xterm' shows the cursor correctly (until now the only
program I've found that does this). The cursor show is a couple of lines off though.

- Erratically, just sharing a screen fails, and the window shows as a black rectangle at the
other end.

- It doesn't seem to matter if Windows or Linux is used at the client's end.

- I seem to remember, years ago, that there was an issue about software or hardware
cursors being an issue, but can't recall the details (this was several PC's ago and probably
at XFCE 4.8 or less, and Linux 2.xxx)

Does anyone have any experience with this issue?
Suggestions for testing?
Could this be an XFCE problem?
I've searched -a lot- on the search engines, found nearly no reference
to this issue (in fact, just one, confirming cursors don't work on Ubuntu, contradicting above)

NOTE:

            shows       cursor
gnumeric    Yes         No
geany       No          Sometimes(1)
firefox     Yes         Yes
xeyes       Yes         Yes
linsmith    Yes         No
geeqie      Yes         No
gimp        Yes         No

(1) If editor has much text, it doesn't show.
    In one occasion, Meet blocked completely. (had to restart FF)
    Another time, resizing screen, shared screen warbled.

Last edited by jcoppens (2020-05-13 15:02:37)

alcornoqui

Member

Registered: 2014-07-28

Posts: 832

Re: Cursor (pointer) not transmitting in Google Meet. XFCE problem?

Sorry, thought I had something but it was your question on Stack Overflow!

sbandeira

Member

Registered: 2020-09-01

Posts: 2

Re: Cursor (pointer) not transmitting in Google Meet. XFCE problem?

I was experiencing this problem. In my case it happened whenever I put a different cursor theme. It seems that google chrome only transmit the pointer if the cursor theme is installed in /usr/share/icons. Once I've put my theme there the problem was resolved.

jcoppens

Member

Registered: 2017-11-18

Posts: 5

Re: Cursor (pointer) not transmitting in Google Meet. XFCE problem?

Hello sbandeira,

I'm not using Chrome, but Firefox. Icons seem to be in /usr/share/icons. I nver thought about the possibility about this being the cause, but testing several configurations do not seem to solve the issue. Was it necessary to restart the browser and/or the window manager?

Last edited by jcoppens (2020-09-02 02:35:19)

sbandeira

Member

Registered: 2020-09-01

Posts: 2

Re: Cursor (pointer) not transmitting in Google Meet. XFCE problem?

Hi jcoppens,

sorry about the delay.
I have logout out and back in to make sure the graphical interface is restarted.
I have noticed that the problem happens only with alternative cursor themes. Pre-installed themes are transmitted just fine.
Nevertheless, if I install a cursor theme that changes the cursor frequently (or is animated) like Silver Xcursor 3D, it solves.

Last edited by sbandeira (2021-02-27 13:57:16)