If anyone recalls Storm Impact's TaskMaker! game, there was an NPC "villain" called Pointy Thing, shaped like a standard arrow cursor...
Anyhow, this is the Invisible Pointy Thing syndrome, where the arrow just disappears from the game, and you have to navigate around by seeing what highlights when you point at it, since you can't really see where the cursor is. This seems to be happening at such random times that I can't pin down what it is that makes the phenomenon occur. Is there someone out there who knows the game's anatomy well enough to diagnose this particular problem? The only helpful circumstance I've noticed is that it might tend to happen when there's a non-family member on the lot, who I've temporarily made selectable with the testingCheat, although I do that often enough without the cursor vanishing, so... Would this make sense? And, is there anything that can be done to prevent it, other than stop using the cheat so often? I recall reading something about this before, but my recent search of the forums for "invisible cursor" came up empty.
Thanks much!

Have you checked the usual culprits, like whether it's something CC-related?
- Try without recently added mods - all is well? something there is causing the problem. (if you don't have a folder for recently added mods, next step: )
- See if it happens without your mods and/or without CC. If the problem disappears, it's CC-related.
- Try the "how to find problem CC" guides - for instance, try the 50/50 method (it usually helps finding conflicting CC).
- Other methods, like the HDCU, could also be helpful.

Might be something outside the game making the cursor invisible. Does it also remain invisible sometimes when you move the mouse, or does it come back from the invisible state when moved? If it comes back, it could be the mouse settings are set to hide the tracker when idle.

I've never heard of this "pointy thing" NPC villain. If it's the "wrong" kind of NPC and you've had it in your game at any point and then removed it, chances are this is what's causing problems. Some NPC mods should not be removed from your game (at least not unless you know what you're doing and can remove them safely) because it can cause corruption - it depends what kind of NPC it is, though. If it's cloned from any of the remote-controlled objects or robots it's considered unsafe to remove them. Birds - possibly unsafe. For other types of NPCs I guess it depends what it's based on (some are safe, or relatively safe.

The only time this happens to me is when I'm panning by holding down the mouse wheel when a dialog pops up, but lately the cursor will come back eventually when that happens. Is something similar happening to you?

When I had similar problems with my cursor, it was because a family member installed some graphics software that conflicted with the game's software. Take a look at programs outside the game.

Different game, but video card fighting with Civ IV causes vanishing cursor on my husband's computer.

Alt-tabing out and then bringing the game back up usually fixes it.

SO, this hasn't happened to me for a while, but it was back again today, or rather, gone again, hence my return to a "mostly-dead" thread. Because I sometimes don't realize it for a second or two, it's hard to pin down what actions lead to it. I can still click on things, I just can't see the cursor itself, and have to guess where it is by what's highlighted. Quitting the game and restarting ALWAYS fixes the problem, but when it starts happening fairly often, this can be a real pain, so barring the sudden appearance of Max, Valerie and the chocolate-coated Miracle Pill, I think prevention is the goal here. It may happen when I switch between live, buy, and build modes, or it may be my clicking on an object that is faulty... I'll try to pay attention next time, but since it always takes me unaware, it's impossible to guarantee that I'll be "with it" when it happens again. I also don't think it can be from outside the game, since I never play in windowed mode. I suppose I could try that, to see if tabbing out to the desktop and then returning would restore function.

The NPC I was referring to isn't from the Sims - it's from TaskMaker, a pixel-y adventure game from the '90s with lots of little bits of humor written in. When you bumped into the NPCs a voice would say "'Scuse me!" and if you did it too many times, it switched to "Get OUTT of the WAYY!" Looking at a shrub would elicit the description "Bush, ex-president". The friendly NPCs included people, but also animals like "Happy Bee" and early models of Macintosh computers; the villains included the usual D&D-type monsters, but also "Evil PC" and the aforementioned Pointy Thing: a standard computer cursor, which - although it looked harmless enough - could inflict major damage if you didn't dispatch it quickly. It had a non-evil counterpart called the Curser, which swore at you if you bumped into it.

ANYHOW, this is no doubt CC-related, just like 90% of play issues end up being... it's just a matter of seeing what action makes the Pointy Thing disappear. Stay tuned...
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I've never had the cursor re-appear, without quitting from the game and re-starting.