Hello all.  Noob here, on the heels of my very first Stellarmate field sessions - which were quite successful overall!

The issue I have is when I access KStars/Ekos via VNC while in the field using the SM iPad app, my keyboard's touchpad cursor isn't visible on the screen.  I know the touchpad is working because when by chance I hover over a desktop icon it appropriately gets focus, but that doesn't help me point to KStars locations or Ekos fields using the touchpad.  I used my iPad's Apple Pencil as a workaround but I'd prefer not to need to do that.

I have the same invisible cursor issue with several keyboard/touchpads (WiFi and Bluetooth) and with multiple PC and iPad browsers and standalone VNC clients.  The noVNC "Show Dot when No Cursor" setting has no effect.  The cursor is visible when I HDMI directly to a monitor while at home, just not when using VNC.

Is this likely a noVNC server config issue on the Pi that I can solve?  Or maybe some sort of screen resolution mismatch?  An incorrectly set WiFi parm?  Would installing a different VNC server on my Pi work around this issue?  (If I install a different VNC server can I somehow shut down the noVNC server, and would doing so still let me use the SM app's VNC client functionality?)

Thanks in advance for any nudges in the right direction that you can provide me!

Jim

I can't see this issue on Android at least. At any rate, this is an option in noVNC to "Show Dot when no Cursor" so maybe try this?

Jasem, thanks for your quick reply - and for the amazing Stellarmate OS product.  Both are much appreciated.

Unfortunately and as mentioned in my original post, the "Show Dot when No Cursor" option has no impact on the issue.  And to reiterate, the problem also occurs for me using either browser-based or standalone VNC clients on Windows - and with SM in either hotspot or router mode.

I should mention that I've tried a couple of clean Stellarmate OS and Raspbian installs to rule out a possible "DEU" (i.e. "Defective End User" = me) but I still have the invisible cursor issue when accessing SM via VNC.

I'm a Raspberry Pi noob with very rusty and meager Unix skills, so I'll ask:  If I try locating and installing a different VNC server on my RPi, how would I go about disabling the noVNC server so they don't clash - or would disabling it not be necessary?

[To my fellow SM OS users:  Are any of you experiencing the invisible cursor issue when using a wireless (WiFi or Bluetooth) integrated keyboard+touchpad on your RPi and VNCing to the SM desktop?]

Thanks again.

Jim      PS - Because you aren't seeing the issue on your SM Android app and I have no Android device, I spent part of the morning looking for an Android emulator for my Windows desktop to see if my issue would be reflected on that, but I haven't found a suitable emulator.

Hi again Jasem,

I just found a similar-sounding closed "mouse cursor hidden" issue on the github noVNC site (github.com/novnc/noVNC/issues/726).  A user resolved the issue by enabling the noVNC "local cursor" setting.  How/where do I access that setting?

Jim

It turns out I was able to solve my own issue through some research, a large dose of stubbornness, and a bit of experimentation.  In the hope that my solution might help someone else with a similar problem...

I edited /etc/systemd/system/x11vnc.service, inserting the -nocursorshape parameter into the line that executes /usr/bin/x11vnc.

I've thrown several VNC clients at it and my wireless keyboard/touchpad's cursor is now visible on the screen while using each of them.  There might be a tiny bit of lag as a result of the fix, but nothing troublesome and easily worth it to have a visible cursor using VNC via the Stellarmate app on my iPad!

Of course your mileage may vary.  Also I can't guarantee this doesn't have a negative side-effect that I haven't yet encountered, or that the fix will work properly with all hardware/software combinations.

Jim