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If you experience unexpected behavior while drawing, selecting, importing, or exporting, use this guide to quickly resolve the issue. Most symptoms are caused by active tools, hidden selections, or browser focus states.

Common Canvas & Drawing Issues

I Cannot Draw or Paint on the Canvas

This is typically caused by one of three active editor locks:

  • Active Selection Lock: If a selection is active, you can only paint inside that selection. Press Escape or click Deselect to paint elsewhere.
  • Import Overlay Lock: While dragging, cropping, or scaling an imported image, all drawing tools are paused. Click Commit (check) or Cancel (close) to unlock the canvas.
  • Rotation Preview Lock: When using custom layer rotation angles, drawing is disabled while the preview is displayed. Click Apply or Cancel in the Transform panel.
  • Locked Layer: Verify that the active layer card in your floating Layers stack does not display the lock icon (lock). Click the lock to toggle edit mode.
Fill (Flood Fill) is Not Reaching Expected Pixels

The Fill tool fills connected pixels of a matching color. If a selection mask is active, the fill area is tightly constrained inside that boundary. Clear the selection if you want to flood the full canvas.

Keyboard Shortcuts Are Not Triggering

Shortcuts are temporarily disabled whenever focus is shifted away from the workspace (for example, if you click the browser's search bar, switch tabs, or are currently typing inside text fields like Cursor Name, Frame Delay, or Custom Sizing inputs). Click anywhere on the drawing canvas to return keyboard focus back to the editor.

Import & Workspace Persistence

Why are 16×16 or 24×24 versions missing? Opening one standalone CUR or ANI discards images below 32 pixels in either dimension. If a frame has no image at least 32×32, the file cannot be imported. Choose a source file with supported artwork. This rule applies to the standalone-file workflow; archive and multi-file imports still offer their existing padding choices.

Why does import say "Selected pixels exceed 128 MiB"? One import can unpack up to 128 MiB of artwork, and a large animated set (for example 256 × 256 cursors with many frames) can need more. Untick some cards and import the rest, then open the same file again and import the cards you left out. Combine sizes still works on each import.

Why does As a layer show only one size on my canvas? Layer import places the size selected in Source size. Choose New cursor instead to keep all supported sizes as separate size cards. The size list describes the source artwork; it does not change your current canvas dimensions.

Imported Image Looks Blurry or Overscaled

Because typical cursors have small pixel grids (e.g. 32x32 px), high-res images undergo massive downsampling. Use the Fit to Canvas or Real Size (100%) buttons in the import bar. Ensure you select the Nearest Neighbor resize method for retro pixel art, and Lanczos for photos and detailed vectors.

My Autosaved Workspace Draft Has Disappeared

Autosaves are stored locally inside your browser's private sandbox (IndexedDB). They do not sync to servers. Your draft will disappear if you switch browsers, use Private/Incognito windows, run cleaning tools (like CCleaner), or manually clear your browser's site cookies and storage data. Always export regular .cur or .zip backups at major milestones to secure your work!

Batch Color

Why is a cursor marked Too large? Batch Color recolors a cursor size of up to 16 MiB saved and 64 MiB of image data, which covers a 256 × 256 size with 64 frames and a few layers. A larger cursor can still be previewed but not selected. Remove some of its frames, layers or sizes, or recolor it in the editor.

Why does Batch Color say "Apply is off until the backup can be built"? Batch Color only starts a batch it can back up, and the backup covers every cursor in the workspace. The message above it names the cursor and the reason: it could not be read, it is too large to back up, nothing in the workspace is visible (hidden layers are left out of the backup), or the backup would be over 50 MiB. Fix or remove that cursor, then open Batch Color again. See Batch Color.

Batch Color says it could not confirm whether the changes were saved. This rare message means the save may or may not have finished, so Batch Color keeps your originals and allows only Reload saved workspace. Reload: the editor then shows exactly what was saved.

🪲 Report a Bug or Request a Feature

The cursor editor is actively maintained and updated based on designer feedback. If you encounter a software bug, rendering error, or export failure—or if you have an idea for a cool new feature—please reach out directly!

Email all bug reports, logs, and feature requests to: tor@cursors-4u.com.

Tip: When reporting a bug, including your canvas size, browser version, and a quick step-by-step description of how to reproduce the issue helps us resolve it much faster!

Related Pages

Selections Select pixels with boxes, color matching, or polygons, then copy, paste, move, clear, or adjust them. Image to Cursor Turn an image into cursor artwork with import placement, cleanup, hotspot, and export steps. Saving Drafts Understand local autosave drafts, browser storage, and how to avoid losing work while testing.