Fix glitching mouse pointer in Ubuntu/Arch/Debian
Hi,
I've tried the DisplayLink driver using the recommended os (Ubuntu 16.04). After connecting a secondary display (1080p) using USB-C, I had a trail of blinking mouse pointers following the real one and all the animations started glitching.
When moving the mouse over any Window except the Desktop, there would be a glitching square (about double the edge length of the mouse pointer sprite) containing the desktop background around the mouse pointer.
I've also tried Arch Linux (using the AUR package) and Debian 9 (Using the Ubuntu package) and they show the exact same behavior.
On the three operating systems, I've tried Kernel versions 4.19 and 4.20, both having the same issues.
I have a Thinkpad P1 with a Xeon E-2176M CPU (Intel UHD Graphics P630) and a Nvidia Quatro P2000 Mobile (GP107GLM). I suspect this to be an error related to the hardware I'm using; partially because I tried different operating systems and different kernel versions.

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Clown Heino commented
Okay so while this is an ultra old post, I stumbled upon it with the same problem. I was able to fix it with the archwiki:
echo "options evdi initial_device_count=2" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/evdi.conf
also with this:
ls -al /dev/dri/by-path # identify your evdi cardsSection "Device"
Identifier "usbdev"
Driver "modesetting"
Option "kmsdev" "/dev/dri/<YOUR EVDI CARD>" e.g. /dev/dri/card2
EndSectionSection "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "usbdev"
EndSectioninto /etc/X11/xorg.conf
from here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/DisplayLink
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Nada Kired commented
i had the same issue, and I did execute this: dconf reset -f /
in the terminal.
you can follow the instructions here https://www.it-swarm-fr.com/fr/reset/existe-t-il-une-commande-pour-reinitialiser-ubuntu-en-usine/961086772/ -
God's Hacker commented
I was having the same issue with the latest Arch build (5.10.36 LTS Kernel) on my 2020 Dell Latitude with an i7.
The cursor disappears when you stop moving the mouse, then renders an ugly box artifact around it when moving. I had two 1080P screens hooked up the D6XXX dock, through the USB 3.1 port.
The other annoying thing I noticed that made me just switch back to the standard HDMI port and one external monitor is the CPU usage is ridiculously high with the dock - the same is true in Windows, my work laptop is a higher end DELL with the same i7 and when the dock is connected through it's lightning port the CPU ramps up.
On Linux however - the CPU usage is MUCH higher than even in Windows. I was seeing ~40% usage and about ~4GB of memory usage from the Display link driver while playing a movie through Firefox.
Not worth the glitchy cursor and the high CPU usage (that makes the fan noise unbearable after about ten minutes) just to get an extra monitor.
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Rake Bullet commented
I get a small square not refreshing under the cursor sometimes on Manjaro KDE Linux (Plasma 5.20.4) and Kernel 5.10.2-2 with NVIDIA non free driver 455.45.01.
Arch wiki seemed to suggest this might be related to hardware acceleration on GTK apps and it could be disabled. I did not test and gave up on this experiment for now.
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merouane agar commented
A workaround is to restart the lightdm service
sudo systemctl restart lightdm
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Jerome commented
Looks like this company doesn't care client support. Let's go to amazon to explain how they don't care to fix problem. And let's talk about that in IRC channels, and specialized forum, Youtube channels dedicated.
They should provide an open source code at minimum and care about the quality of the driver code to ricj a good Linux users reputation. Actually, they are doing nothing. -
Anonymous commented
Guys, I found the solution. You need to turn off the "zoom" option in settings.
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Luna commented
Do these people even care about linux? Have had the same issues
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chrisio commented
Same issue here on Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS and displaylink-driver-5.3.0.28 and Nvidia
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Paolo commented
Not sure if it's the same problem but...(I have 2 1080 monitors connected to my docking station and a Envy 4 laptop (core i3) running Linux Mint 20. If I have the laptop open, so effectively 3 screens, then there is no problem. Everything works fine, no mouse lag. However, if I close the laptop lid, then the mouse becomes incredibly laggy on the two 1080 monitors. If I open the laptop again, then it fixes itself. Any ideas?
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Karo Launonen commented
Same really annoying problem here too with Fedora 32 and Dell XPS 13 9570. Please fix this asap!
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Egyas commented
So I take it that this issue is not likely to be fixed, given how long it's lived out there in the wilds?
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Paulo Aboim Pinto commented
looks like there is no solution for this ... YET...
having this issue with the last version of today in Ubuntu 20.04 -
Anonymous commented
the same with 20.4
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Alon Diamant commented
Happens to me as well. Ubuntu 19.10 with a generic USB 3.0 Dock, and 2 HDMI monitors. Interestingly, the issue I have (among others) is that when I scroll down in a browser, for example, a 128x128 (or is it 64x64?) square of pixels around the cursor does not change from the original content pre-scroll. Moving the mouse enough resets this, after a second or two. This is super annoying when editing code, for example.
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Abe Petrillo commented
This seems to still be a problem on Ubuntu 19.10 using a dell 9370
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Juan Fernandez Ridano commented
Same issue here on Ubuntu 18.04.04
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Fernando Torres commented
any solution??
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Anonymous commented
Confirmed..Same issue on ubuntu 19.10 while installed the 5.2.15 driver. Upgraded from 18.04 to see if the issue remains, but no luck.. Maybe a kernel compatibilty issue?
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Pierre M commented
Same issue here on Linux Mint 19.3.
Using a docking station from i-tec ( CADUA4KDOCKPDLUK) and 2 IIYAMA monitors.Very very annoying
@DisplayLink: please fix this urgently, it's just too big an issue to be ignored.