Remember when my computer used to hiccup at a certain time every night?

Computer hiccup

Well, it does it again and I exhausted my efforts to figure it out and don't care about it anymore except - last night it caused a problem for me while I was playing Lost Horizon. The hiccup minimized my game and it was stuck that way. I couldn't open it up again, nor could I do anything else. My mouse would not work on my screen at all (like it was stuck in a Virtual Machine). I was able to use the Windows key on my keyboard and get to other things, like task manager or the internet or whatever I could access from the task bar at the bottom of my screen but I couldn't do anything with any of it. I was able though to restart my computer which is what I had to do.

My question is, if this should happen again, is there some key to get out of it? I tried F4 but didn't know what else to try. Raised my panic level!

Ob, I fixed your link to make it easier for people to access it.

Thank you, Marian. I don't know how to link that way.

Oldbroad, when you open up the Full Editor on a post, there is an "earth" icon - fifth from the right - that lets you enter the link and then give it a name.

For a cursor that has disappeared, I found that if F5 or another function key doesn't work, try using the shift key with it. Otherwise, CTRL/ALT/DEL and then using the up and down keys to navigate to the power options.

Did it happen exactly at 5:30 again?

Thanks, I'll try to remember that "earth" icon in the future (but probably will not).

The hiccup is later, somewhere between 9 and 10, I haven't paid much attention to the exact time or if it is even the exact same time every night. I just know it keeps happening around then sometime. I only notice it if I'm in a game and it has not caused any problem before this. I think it is just this older game (and maybe would happen with other older games like this).

I wrote above "(like it was stuck in a Virtual Machine)" but it was more like being stuck OUTSIDE of the VM box that the game was in except it was not in the game and it was my full desktop screen (except the bottom task bar), not a window box. It was not exactly a disappearing cursor, just not usable on my desktop screen. It was trapped outside of it somewhere. I know there is some way to move back and forth between a VM screen and your actual screen but can't remember what it is and that is what I thought might help me if I get stuck like this in the future. I know I won't play this game at that time anymore though but maybe something else will cause it.

I was smack dab in the middle of the game when I clicked on the map to change location and the game quit on me. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to finish it but I found a post in the Steam discussion that said how to "configure" the game to get past this issue, and it worked. Yay! I almost never change game settings because I don't know what most of them do .

Yay! Well, that's one issue solved!