Bug 280695

This is rather not a kwin issue but somewhere in kdelibs (at best, given a pure gnome application is inconsitent with a large I-beam any a "normal" pointer)

Can you confirm it's a larger version of the same pointer and NOT a theme and the X11 default pointer (for the "normal" one - it's black, so try eg. a white theme to be sure)

Did you try to hardcode the DPI in xorg.conf?
Also which distro do you use? (iff any)

Assigning to "KDE" cause i've no idea what would be responsible here.

Changing the mouse theme is a good idea but confuses me just more. The changed mouse pointer will be be accepted by the KDE applications but after a restart of the application the standard enlarged mouse will be shown again. And this time I know it's the standard mouse pointer.

The gnome-* programms just use the new pointer too but they will also show the enlarged standard mouse pointer (where I mentioned it before) just like with no theme at all.

I don't force any DPI settings:

% grep < /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc ServerArgsLocal
ServerArgsLocal=-background none -nolisten tcp

Current DPI is:

% xdpyinfo | grep -i dots
  resolution:    237x83 dots per inch

I'm using a normal Fedora Core 15 (no Rawhide) in x86_64.

(In reply to comment #2)
> The gnome-* programms just use the new pointer too but they will also show the
> enlarged standard mouse pointer (where I mentioned it before) just like with no
> theme at all.
It's important to understand that the titlebar is usually NOT part of the window.
Do the gtk+ aplpications still mix cursor usage inside and is it random or just a split between the I-beam and the Left pointer (that normal thing pointing the upper left;-)
 
> I don't force any DPI settings:
> 
> % grep < /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc ServerArgsLocal
> ServerArgsLocal=-background none -nolisten tcp
> 
> Current DPI is:
> 
> % xdpyinfo | grep -i dots
>   resolution:    237x83 dots per inch
there's the first source of your issue: you do certainly not have 237dpi of horizontal resolution, do you? (that would mean your three monitors are 16'' or 411.5mm (that is 41cm) altogether but rather ONE of them.
Try to correct the display geometry or hardcode the DPI in xorg.conf

X11 apparently only takes the h'res into account (otherwise the pointer should be horizontally stretched since the assumes resolution is no way square anymore) -> X11 bug but likely not worth to deal with (such resolution is quite unlikely to really exist)

Remains the question why sometimes the themed pointer is used and sometimes the default X11 (fallback) one.
I guess the clients look for a pointer matching your resolution and get arbitrarily confused or sometimes use the vertical and sometimes the horizontal one. No idea though. Shrug.

-> Please try whether the issue disappears (ie. always the themed cursor is used) when you "fix" the resolution. So we know what client bug to look for :)

> 
> I'm using a normal Fedora Core 15 (no Rawhide) in x86_64.

(In reply to comment #3)

> > % xdpyinfo | grep -i dots
> >   resolution:    237x83 dots per inch
> there's the first source of your issue: you do certainly not have 237dpi of
> horizontal resolution, do you? (that would mean your three monitors are 16'' or
> 411.5mm (that is 41cm) altogether but rather ONE of them.
> Try to correct the display geometry or hardcode the DPI in xorg.conf

Good catch. The strange DPI comes from the graphic card combined with two tripple head 2 go. So my
card thinks it's connected to 2 monitors with 3840x1024.

I fixed the resolution to 80 DPI:

% grep ServerArgsLocal /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc
ServerArgsLocal=-background none -nolisten tcp -dpi 80
% 

After a CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE everything is fine. No enlarged cursors anymore (neither with KDE nor Gnome programms).

Thanks. (I close this bug with RESOLVED/FIXED.)

Bug is where the DPI is computed, probably in XRandR => upstream