I know somebody here will have the answer to this petty question, Wilder's always comes to the rescue, there are so many experts around. Question ? How can I get rid of that infernal Hour Glass when it sticks on my screen, will not go away and freezes up everything. My only solution is to crash the PC on the power button and start plodding through the reboot big yawn procedure. I have tried everything I know with no success. It certainly does not like foul language. John
John--the hour glass is not freezing up anything. The next time this happens go into Task Manager and see what program and services are running.
Hello Dan and thanks. I cannot do a thing when it happens, nothing works, no clicks, no closing of screens, no Task Manager, no cursor pointer, keys do nothing. Some people would jump at the chance to say "It`s a Virus", but they would be wrong - no infection is responsible, completely off track with that one. Must be something locking up. Happened about 3 times over the past week, last time was tonight when I was editing a Forum post. As I said, everything freezes up and goes into suspended hibernation. The only thing alive is the computer clock.
You can't get rid of the hour glass. The hour glass shows when there are work in progress. So when these freezes come, you need to find the problem to them possibly in the task-manager as FiOS Dan recommended above and get rid of whatever is causing the freeze. And that way you get rid of the stuck hourglass. It could be a conflict between some of your software.
Change your mouse pointer to something else. If it is just stuck and won't even move on the screen there is nothing you can do but reboot. Usually when that happens frequently on any PCs I have used it is bad RAM, incorrect RAM timings, or insufficient voltage to some component, if your BIOS allows adjustments. I've also had a failing power supply cause that.
As pointed out, the hourglass is not the issue as it ordinarily appears briefly to let the user know something is happening; program loading, file opening etc. What is the issue, however, is the fact that it stays there for a long time which implies that there are issues on the computer. This you will need to troubleshoot further. Start by reviewing the event viewer logs for errors.
Thanks Cudni, I looked at the Event Viewer, the only reference to a problem was "MsiInstaller" or "Service Control Manager". The description never clicked with what I was doing at the time - nothing big. Twice it hour- glassed me when I was simply logging on to animal Forums. I`ll keep my eyes open and plod on. Wilder`s logged in OK, but they did not. It has happened at other times, even on the desktop. Sorry to waste time on this, but I had this feeling that the Wizards of Wilder's may have some tricks-of-the-trade up their sleeves. John
No Scoob, it seems quite random - it occurred with Geeks Forum. I don`t know what causes it, but it it not a frequent pleasure. I suppose it has clobbered me about 6 times over 7 days. It don`t like swearing Scoob, digs it`s heels in at that and looks real mean. John
I would try to think back and remember when it first started doing this, and then see if you can remember the last changes you made to your system right before that, or new or updated software, and so on. Could be just about anything really...
The Hour Glass means the computers system is buzzy with something, is could be as simple as having more than one page open and one page hasn't finished loading or the AV has a auto-update or one of the programs you just closed 2 minutes ago hasn't fully closed yet check the Task Manager as FiOS said.
Odd that it occurs on multiple 'animal forums' and a 'geek' forum. Is there something strange about these particular sites?...and by that I mean their setup/layout/forum engine rather than their content.
Scoob my dear friend, I have a feeling from the comments so far that I know what is happening. From my previous experience in programming computers, I suspect it is a functional loop, caused by the responses of two operations overlapping and resulting in an indefinite loop. The only way to break such a loop is to crash the power. From my previous programming experience I had to create loops in programs, mainly as search commands. It usually involved a GOTO and then a loop exit of usually an IF statement. Until the computer finds the IF command, it will continue indefinitely. With a response lag that overlaps another, there will be no exit command, it will loop for ever and the only answer is a power crash. I guess in my case, as it is an infrequent problem and allowing for the fact that something in my system is not performing quick enough in order to avoid response overlap, I have got to live with it. Like Kerodo said "If it ain't broke, you haven't tweaked it enough...." John
Sometimes if your pointer doesn't move you can activate task manager by pressing simultaneously "Ctrl + Shift + Esc". You can also test free for a while jv16 Power Tools which has among other things "System Tools/System Optimizer/Performance Tweaks/Decrease software hung time" see screenshot. I would also check if that happens with a different browser.
Thank you Osaban, I know that when these damned things get stuck, it always amounts to a crash on the power button. But I had hoped there was a keyboard command that would break the circuit. Your "Cntrl+Shift+Esc" looks promising, I`ll try it next time. That is what I was looking for. "Escape !" From what ? The blinking key does nothing to escape from anything that I have found, except to reduce full size screens to normal. When this paralysis happens, I cannot use Task Manager, since the cursor has an hour glass stuck there, so all those kind posters who suggest that I use this, I just cannot and "Cntrl+Alt+Del" does not work. I think my little problem has taken enough time up and I thank everybody who has tried to help. It is not a frequent pest, so I can live with it until I find a solution or it goes away. Benefit ? It keeps my vocabulary real colourful, reminiscent of the drill Sergeant. John
