Why is "cursor:pointer" effect in CSS not working

I set cursor: pointer for .about > span, but when my mouse hovers on those texts in <span>, the cursor does not change into pointer mode. I would like to know why it is not working.

HTML:

 <div id="firstdiv">
      <div id="intro">
          <h1 id="name">YOU CHIA LAI</h1>
              <ul>
                  <li class="about">I am a Master of <span>Architecture</span>  
                   candidate at Rice University.  
                  </li>
                  <li class="about">I am also interested in <span>photography</span> &        
                  <span>web design</span>.</li>
                  <li class="about">I wish you can know more <span>about</span> me.
                  </li>
             </ul>
      </div>
  </div>

CSS:

#firstdiv {
    position:fixed;
    top:0;
    left:0;
    right:0;
    height:100%;
    width:100%;
    margin:auto;
    background:#E6E6E6;
    text-align:center;
    font-size:0;
    z-index:-2
}
.about > span {
    cursor:pointer;
    font-family:Eurofurence Light;
    padding:0 0 3px 0;
    color:#01DFA5;
}

I messed with my css for hours, changing the positioning and z-index of just about every element on the page. I deleted every other element from the DOM except for the one with the cursor: pointer on hover, and it STILL didn't work.

For me, on Mac OSX El Captain V 10.11, the issue had to do with some sort of interference with Photoshop CC. Once I closed Photoshop, the cursor started working again.

Solution for me: Close and reopen Photoshop

Apparently this can happen due to many different programs including Photoshop, Sketch, DataGrip, Acrobat, Sublime Text, etc.

You need to change the z-index so that #firstdiv is considered on top of the other divs.

Just happened to me, and in my case it was due to a CSS rule pointer-events: none; which was set on a parent element and I forgot about it.

This caused any pointer events to be just ignored, which includes the cursor.

To fix this, you can just set the style to allow pointer events:

.about>span{
    cursor:pointer;
    pointer-events: auto;
}

Or directly in the element:

<span style="pointer-events: auto;">...</span>

cursor:pointer doesn't work when you're using Chrome's mobile emulator.

Also add cursor:hand. Some browsers need that instead.

position: relative;
z-index: 2;
cursor: pointer

worked for me.

For the last few hours, I was scratching my head why my CSS wasn't working! I was trying to show row-resize as cursor but it was showing the default cursor but for s-resize browser was showing the correct cursor. I tried changing z-index but that also didn't solve my problem.

So after trying few more solutions from the internet, I called one of my co-workers and shared my screen via Google meet and he told me that he was seeing the row-resize icon when I was seeing the default icon!!! He even sent me the screenshot of my screencast.

So after further investigation, I found out the as I was using Remote Desktop Connection to connect to my office PC, for some reason RDC doesn't show some type of cursors.

Here is the list of cursor's I couldn't see on my remote PC,

none, cell, crosshair, text, vertical-text, alias, copy, col-resize, row-resize,

It works if you remove position:fixed from #firstdiv - but @Sj is probably right as well - most likely a z-index layering issue.

I had this issue using Angular and SCSS. I had all my CSS nested so I decided to remove cursor: pointer; out of it. And it worked.

Example:

.container{
  .Approved{
    color:green;
  }

  .ApprovedAndVerified{
    color:black;
  }

  .lock_button{
    font-size:35px;
    display:block;
    text-align:center;
  }
}

.lock_button{
  cursor:pointer;
}

The problem in my case was that the :after blocked mouse events, so I had to add pointer-events: none; to my :after block.

I have the same issue, when I close the chrome window popup browser inspector its working fine for me.

The solution that worked for me is using forward slash instead of backslash when 'calling' out from a local directory.

instead of backslash:

cursor: url("C:\Users\Ken\projects\JavascriptGames\images\bird.png"), auto;

Note: When I use backslash I am getting a net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND

I changed it to forwardslash:

cursor: url("C:/Users/Ken/projects/JavascriptGames/images/bird.png"), auto;

Note: When I use forward slash, the custom cursor style executes successfully.

This behavior regarding backslashes and forward slashes could probably be explained in this StackOverflow answer: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19558601/strange-backslash-and-behavior-in-css

My problem was using cursor: 'pointer' mistakenly instead of cursor: pointer. So, make sure you are not adding single or double quotes around pointer.

For me, the issue was that I had this set globally:

::-webkit-scrollbar {
  display: none;
}

After removing this, cursor: pointer works as expected.

Remove parent z-index value fixed the issue for me.

I found a solution: use :hover with cursor: pointer if nothing else helps.

Prevent user from selecting text, then use curser:pointer property -

.targeted-span{
user-select: none;
curser : pointer;}

Position the element as relative and then use z-index

.menu-toggle{ 
    display: block; 
    width: 40px; 
    height: 40px; 
    border:2px solid white; 
    border-radius: 5px; 
    margin: 15px; 
    float: right; 
    cursor: pointer; 
    text-align: center; 
    font-size: 30px; 
    color: var(--light-bg-color); 
    z-index: 10; 
}