I just upgraded from 8.04 Ubuntu to 10.04. The mouse cursor works fine during login. As soon as the system switches to the desktop, the arrow cursor "image" disappears (remains working ..you just can't see it). The OS will also randomly shut down requiring a re boot.
For the mouse cursor I am currently using a work around which is to hit the control button which "locates" the mouse and once located, I move to select and open gnome terminal. Typing a couple of Chars. and mouse movement brings up the "I" bar cursor image, and then the mouse image will operate properly until re boot, where the issue returns.
On the random shut down I am not 100 percent that the system has shut down... it may be that the PC is turning off the monitor (the monitor appears to power cycle over and over until cntl-alt-del is pressed).
As far as the PC I am using:
Dual Boot Linux on hda and XP Home on hdb.
PC is Dell 2400 (I believe built in Intel 945 video card)

Problem only occurs with Ubuntu 10.04 not reproducable under WinXP so I believe the problem to be kernel or driver issue in Ubuntu. I have checked several forums and bug reports but have seen no solutions although there seem to be several users with similar/same problems.

Thanks for any help on this issue,
Alan

Unlikely it is kernel. Much more likely is driver and|or setup.

Is this general to all DE, not just Gnome? =suggest try other DE and see.

Turn off the "hardware cursor" function and see if that resolves issue. -OR- if the HW cursor is not on, turn it on. (The default setup is unknown as it varies across installations.)

ANY key(e.g., ALT) should bring the monitor back if it has been blanked. The mouse should too but maybe not in your issue.
If the keyboard has stopped responding, the kernel "magic" keys may(should) still work. Sometimes even the CTRL-ALT-BKSPC will work to restart the X server. You lose the DE and end up at login but no data should get corrupted.
Change the power management setup. Do not "blank" screen(xorg.conf) and do not use screensavers. If the screen blanks then, something is amiss.

You system BIOS may have options for power management. Insure that they are correct.

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I hate using the term shut down as this does not appear to be entirely true but for lack of a better term....

"Unlikely it is kernel. Much more likely is driver and|or setup."
This was a "plain vanilla" setup from Ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso from http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download . There was no additional software added on my part although there was a large amount of updates that were installed on first start up. I have added Apache2.2 server (httpd), GIMP2 and pluggins since that time, but the mouse and shutdown problem occurred before this.

"Is this general to all DE, not just Gnome? =suggest try other DE and see."
Ubuntu uses gnome "out of the box"....Kubuntu uses KDE. From the net I have seen similar issues from several DE's so this may not be an issue to deal with just yet.
From what I can tell it seems as though the disappearing mouse issue seems to have been around since version 9.01 or since the H.A.L. was removed but I may be confusing things here.

"ANY key(e.g., ALT) should bring the monitor back if it has been blanked."
In the case of system shutting down, hibernating, or whatever it is doing, the Num lock light will turn on and off by pressing the key and pressing Ctl- Alt- Delete will cause the system to reboot so I assume the keyboard and CPU are still working but just pressing a key does not return the screen. The screen "appears" to flash with vertical bars showing from the top down to about 30 percent of the screen, as if the screen or the PC was trying to do a soft reset.

"The mouse should too but maybe not in your issue."
The mouse once "tricked" into working will stay on screen with out any further problem until the next time that the system is restarted and I assume it will occur when changing users (have not tried this yet, but will ...trying to reply here before reset happens).

"Sometimes even the CTRL-ALT-BKSPC will work to restart the X server."
I really wish it would but no luck there.

"You lose the DE and end up at login but no data should get corrupted."
Actually, I have had the reset happen in the middle of writing an email and the wise folks from Evolution appear to have a really good data save routine. One restore of the email and I was back in business, so kudo's to the Evolution team.

"Change the power management setup. Do not "blank" screen(xorg.conf) and do not use screensavers. If the screen blanks then, something is amiss."
In the order of sentences....Did it before coming here for help...never use them and don't blank....and finally yes it is.

I am not sure what is going on. I have been monitoring logs but I am not exactly sure where to look. Currently I have been keeping my nose in syslog and messages but I have only found one or two issues which seem to occur just before shut down and may be unrelated which is
rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="4.2.0" x-pid="524" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] exiting on signal 15.

and the other

pulseaudio[1332]: ratelimit.c: 6 events suppressed

there is also

kc4mts-desktop kernel: [ 3570.476022] [drm:i915_gem_idle] *ERROR* hardware wedged.
This comes up occasionally but does not appear to co-inside with the time of shut down, nor does it happen in all cases of shut down.

I will continue to look over the logs to see what is what.

"You system BIOS may have options for power management. Insure that they are correct."
I run 4 web sites off of this PC so I have power management pretty much off in the BIOS. I just changed the Systems settings for the monitor to never turn off (was set for 1 hour but did not seem to make a difference).

I believe that I found the problem that is causing the "shut down" . It is not really shutting down but the x.org server is stopping and will not restart without reboot.

The error in syslog is:

kernel: [ 3570.476022] [drm:i915_gem_idle] *ERROR* hardware wedged.

There appears to be a bug report for this for a number of intel graphics chip sets (i815, i855 etc.) and the one bug report that seems to fit is https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s.../507504/+index.
There does not appear to be a fix in place yet as the problem has not been traced completely yet to KSM or the X server. There does seem to be a work around by turning KSM off, which I will try later. The URL for this is https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting. Hope it works!

Yes, I hope it works too.

The CTRL-ALT-BKSPC is configurable option. ON by default, *buntu people are so smart that they know what you and everybody else need, they turn it off. THE problem is that it should be config'd in the xorg.conf file but *buntu plays games and may not have done it there. ...
I would try it anyway as it is essential for some distros and DE's.
E.g.:
Add the SWCursor switch in the xorg.conf file. E.g.:
RE: #5.11. Option ``HWCursor'' and Option ``SWCursor''

The pulseaudio, rsyslogd messages are not related to X|pointer issue.
If the numlock works, I'd say you have access and should be able to get console with CTRL-ALT-F1(or similar) so you can login and shutdown|reboot properly. Once fixed, the C-A-B should work too.
If you cannot get console and shutdown|reboot is mandatory, I would definitely use the kernel MagicSys SUB to do it. ...unfortunately, *buntu ... prbly disabled that too, but it is worth a try.
[CTRL-ALT-SYSRQ] then use the option key ( S syncs, U remounts read only and B reboots. )

BOL!

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I appreciate the help you have all provided. Unfortunately I have 4 web sites on my PC that need to be up as much as possible, and I need confidence in my equipment that it will continue to serve files. After much "spinning my wheels" over these two issues, I have reverted to 8.04 Linux (Ubuntu) which causes no problems with the Intel graphics nor with the mouse cursor.
I will be getting another tower shortly to replace the one that caused me to transfer all of the files to this DELL 2400 and will reinstall 10.04 Linux on that box ( if it has Intel graphics chips) but it will only be for debugging purposes until I am confident that the system will perform correctly.

By the way, ALT CTL BKSPC works great now. Thank you for the tip.

Thanks for everything,
Alan kc4mts