Arch Linux

Cindra

Member

Registered: 2025-05-18

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] Black cursor on main monitor, chosen cursor on second monitor

i'm using kde plasma, on a barebones fresh install.
i have two monitors, and for some reason the cursor theme i choose in the colors & themes section of the system settings app, only applies to my second monitor. so if i choose Breeze Light, i'll see it if i move my cursor to my second monitor but it'll change to a fully black cursor whenever i move it back to my main monitor. I've also downloaded a couple cursors and tried those but the same thing happens. This is a problem, because i can't see anything if the cursor is fully black, since a lot of apps have a black or at least quite dark color scheme.
The only thing i've found online even slightly related to this, was when the cursor changed depending on the applicatin, and fixed that by going to
/usr/share/icons/default/index.theme
and changing Inherits=Adwaita to Inherits=Breeze_Snow
in my case i tried that, and then changed it to Breeze Light as that's what i'm using
I don't know what i should do from here on.

Last edited by Cindra (2025-05-26 13:45:21)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,477

Re: [SOLVED] Black cursor on main monitor, chosen cursor on second monitor

Wayland or X11?
Can you drag windows across the monitors and does the cursor color then change for the same window?
Is this a hybrid graphics system (ie. two GPUs) and are the two monitors attached to different GPUs?

The cursor is *fully* black (w/o a white outline)?
Does it also change its shape or does it look like the Breeze cursor, just black?

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

Cindra

Member

Registered: 2025-05-18

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Black cursor on main monitor, chosen cursor on second monitor

Only a problem on wayland. The cursor changes color on X11
The cursor changes from black to white and vice versa when dragging windows between monitors
only one gpu and both monitors are connected to it

The cursor is very dark grey with a black outline.
It does change shape, but not color.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,477

Re: [SOLVED] Black cursor on main monitor, chosen cursor on second monitor

Which wayland compositor specifically?
For anything wlroots, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Sway#No_visible_cursor

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

Cindra

Member

Registered: 2025-05-18

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Black cursor on main monitor, chosen cursor on second monitor

The wayland compositor is KWin, so just the one that is part of kde plasma. Very new to this, so i don't know if there is some setup i'm missing for it.
I don't think it's wlroots, but i don't really understand what wlroots is.
I actually tried using hyprland and promtly gave up after a bit, but the cursor stayed the same on both monitors there, and i've just realized that the cursor is the same on both monitors when logging in with sddm

Last edited by Cindra (2025-05-19 14:26:00)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,477

Re: [SOLVED] Black cursor on main monitor, chosen cursor on second monitor

I don't think it's wlroots

I think it is. SDDM is probably X11 (by default) and hyprland is wlroots-adjacent.

---

How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

Cindra

Member

Registered: 2025-05-18

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Black cursor on main monitor, chosen cursor on second monitor

Sorry i've been really busy lately, i've been troubleshooting for a while. However being the complete noob i am i just don't understand the words i'm reading. My friend really wants me to try hyprland again, and i believe KWin is the problem as i've tried multiple other compositors and none of those had any issues, so i just uninstalled plasma. And i'll probably post some problem i have with hyprland if it comes up :)
This seems to be a me issue though, as one of my friends tried kde and it worked fine for her.
(I don't know if i'm supposed to mark this as solved or not)

Last edited by Cindra (2025-05-21 20:35:51)

Cindra

Member

Registered: 2025-05-18

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Black cursor on main monitor, chosen cursor on second monitor

OMG it's the HDR, I really thought I turned it off before, when troubleshooting but apparently not. Their solution/workaround was to use https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/wi … _sw_cursor to force a software cursor
But i think i'll just disable HDR for now until i find a real fix.