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Display program and / or command that triggred mouse Wait cursor?

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TichGirl:
I'm having a strange issue where my mouse cursor keeps showing the Wait/Working cursor, and while it does, I'm unable to click to perform whatever action. Especially in Explorer. It'll show the Wait cursor for a second then the normal cursor, then wait cursor, over and over with varying timespans when the Wait cursor shows. This is on a very fast system, so I'm thinking it's not due to something like maxed out CPU, etc.

I watch the RAM, and CPU while it's happening and there's plenty of RAM, and The CPU is nowhere near maxed. I'm wondering if there's some way to log/display EXACTLY which program just triggered the wait cursor. For example, if I write a VB program (let's call it "MyApp.exe") I can manually set the cursor to the Wait cursor like this: Me.Cursor = Cursors.WaitCursor, in which case, I'd like to see "MyApp.exe" show up "live" as it happens, in maybe a floating window(?) or even just a .txt log.

Then I could narrow down or eliminate this tricky, and maddening problem easily. :(

IainB:
@TichGirl: I can't help with your logging query, however this (following) may be of use - if you haven't already been down this path:
From experience (trial-and-error), if it's in Windows 10, when something is apparently causing new problematic/unwanted mouse behaviour/errors, then it might be worth:

* (a) Re-setting the current mouse-settings.
* (b) If you have the facility to save a mouse settings profile, then (if not already done) create a profile and save it, and then reload that profile in the event that the mouse error condition recurs.
* (c) Trying to force an update check/install to the Pointing Device (mouse) driver, to see if that makes any difference. Go look for a newer relevant mouse driver version on the manufacturer site if an auto-check for driver updates does not throw up anything new.
* (d) Stopping, starting (or restarting) any relevant mouse executables or services.
* (e) Stopping, starting (or restarting) Windows Explorer.
____________________________________

The above usually provides some kind of an effective workaround for me - this is on a laptop with a touchpad and where I also simultaneously use a separate wifi mouse. I use Autohotkey a bit to mess around with the mouse behaviour, sometimes.
Mouse drivers seem to be notoriously buggy/fragile, but that might be because they have to be ubiquitously available.
The system is usually not in any kind of a steady state. If the mouse was behaving OK before the situation you describe presented itself, then the new problem has probably been caused/triggered by an OS change/update or an update to a frequently-used  application (some process that is usually resident). Hence I suggest forcing a mouse driver update, as one might have been pushed out to rectify a known, newly-created OS update problem for the mouse driver, but the user doesn't always get notification of that.

Hope that helps or is of use.

skwire:
FWIW, I'm not sure it's even possible to determine which application causes a mouse cursor to change to the hourglass.  I don't think there are any such Windows messages but please correct me if I'm wrong.

You might have better luck asking yourself some questions.  Did your computer just start doing this?  If so, have you installed anything recently?  You mention Explorer...perhaps a new shell extension or something?

TichGirl:
Thank you @IainB, for the pointers.  :) I'm thinking it's not a mouse issue at the root cause for some reason, since when it is changing to the Wait cursor I'm unable to click anything (often-times even with a Wait cursor, Windows will still let me click something). Just a hunch, though I could be wrong.

@SkyWire, I was thinking the same about it possibly not being possible, but thought I'd ask anyway in case anyone else knew something that I don't. Maybe a Super-Mega-Grand-Poobah-Guru would've known some super sneaky and clever way to do this, lol.

I did have this problem for a while now; but, I recently upgraded my motherboard, ram and cpu, and it seems to be even more so than when it was happening on my last mobo/ram/cpu. I have just been watching my processes with taskmanager, and noticed a dllhost.exe constantly opening and closing, which made me raise an eyebrow. I looked at it's command-line and it's to C:\Windows\system32\DllHost.exe /Processid:{AB8902B4-09CA-4BB6-B78D-A8F59079A8D5}.

Looking in the registry at that CLSID it points to thumbcache.dll. I'm wondering if this could be the root cause?

tomos:
noticed a dllhost.exe constantly opening and closing, which made me raise an eyebrow. I looked at it's command-line and it's to C:\Windows\system32\DllHost.exe /Processid:{AB8902B4-09CA-4BB6-B78D-A8F59079A8D5}.
-TichGirl (November 15, 2017, 10:53 AM)
--- End quote ---

A possible solution (see also the previous post at this link)
https://superuser.com/a/695160

(I'm struggling with similar problems at the moment, think it might be hardware here though.)

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