@Lilysmom wrote:
An update. Had the telephone call with the senior tech. Two hours on the phone. Jumping cursor happened. Happened two more times right after I hung up. She sent some info to the engineers to see if there were coding issues. No reply on that front yet.
Had another appointment at the Genius Bar yesterday. Completely wiped the OS and reinstalled Sierra. I have now loaded my content (documents etc) back and other software.
The tech basically said if this didn't fix the issue that it was possibly (I'm too polite ...probably is the right word) my issue, not a computer issue. Said the track pad is very sensitive and I must be hitting it.
Before the afternoon was out, I had four calls from Apple to see the appointment went. Good follow up on their part for sure but too soon to give them any feedback which I will do after some use today and tomorrow.
The tech told me not to install High Sierra. As I mentioned on another post, although he didn't say it, I took it that there are issues with High Sierra that they don't want to have to deal with until this issue is resolved. I asked when I could install it and he said not before January. LM
Those in the tech world call such problems PICNIC. (Problem in chair, not in computer.) Given the number of cases of the jumping cursor I could find that were traced to wireless issues (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.) I don't think it's a PICNIC issue as much as a shielding issue of some sort. These complaints date back seven years or more and often originate out of the blue. It's not like a clumsy typist suddenly stops being a clumsy typist once they change a Bluetooth or Wi-Fi setting. (Oh, if only it were that easy.)
If you look at a motherboard as just a series of conductors and ignore all of the electronic odds and ends, then it's essentially an antenna. (Actually a lot of antennas.) Put a conductor in the path of a radio wave and voila! it generates an electrical current. A small current, but a current all the same. Now depending on the frequency you wish to receive, the antenna takes different forms, but pretty much anything with a conductor is in some way an antenna. (Oddly enough including humans. If you go way back to the old days of rabbit ears, you could sometimes improve a signal by holding one of the rods in your hand. Your body became part of the antenna.)
Modern homes/offices are awash in roughly a gazillion radio waves these days. This jumping cursor issue seems to be caused by the shorter range radio signals (typically Wi-Fi or Bluetooth) and the manufacturers of such devices sometimes let a device through with too powerful a signal. I'm guessing that there's a circuit inside Apple computers that's responsible for moving the cursor that's a little too closely associated with the frequency range of those shorter range signals. When they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and the wrong signal reaches them, the cursor jumps. (Which when later noticed turns the computer user into a curser due to the language that emits from the person when they see what they've typed after the cursor jumped.)
Now at the do-it-yourself level you could try solving the problem by wrapping the entire computer in copper foil that's grounded to ground stray signals reaching the device, but that's awkward at best. You could only use the computer inside a Faraday cage, which is an area shielded to prevent (or at least limit) electromagnetic interference. ( A tick pricey, but it would limit the government's ability to eavesdrop on you, so there's a bit of a bonus there. Of course, the government would probably be curious as to why you were building a Faraday cage.)
If the reverting back to the old OS doesn't solve the problem, this will likely be something you'll have to live with until you buy a new computer. (Hint: Buy an established model and check the reviews to see if anyone is complaining of a jumping cursor now, or on previous models. This is a pretty common problem on Apple computers based on the Googling I've done. I haven't looked to see if it happens routinely on other makes/models.) Good luck with the reverting back to the older OS. Maybe that will solve the problem.
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