Mac Mini Cursor Disrupts Finder, Apps
For the last couple of months, the mouse cursor on my Mac Mini (2020 M1, Sonoma 14.6.1) has caused problems when it hovers over Finder windows and certain apps, sometimes making it impossible to run those apps. In the video linked below, you'll see that when I click on a directory in Finder, it opens a subfolder, but as soon as it attempts to open another subfolder that extends beyond the Finder boundary, all of the columns become unstable and start to creep back toward the left. When I move the cursor outside the columns, the creeping stops, but as soon as I move it back over, the creeping starts again.
Video link: https://youtu.be/Z03ZVbvHviw
Over this same time period, the only way I can play any files (audio or video) in Quicktime is to press play and pull the cursor outside the QT window; if the cursor is left over it, the file just stutters and does not progress at all. And just now, when I opened Adobe Premiere Pro for the first time in many months to resume work on a project, I couldn't access the files in Adobe's finder window; it just froze up completely and wouldn't respond to any mouse commands.
My earlier attempts to diagnose this problem came back with the advice to reduce the amount of memory pressure on the system by shutting down programs and processes not currently needed. I've been doing that and keeping an eye on the memory pressure using the Activity Monitor utility, which currently shows the pressure to be well within the safe (green) range, so that doesn't seem to be the problem.
Can someone please help me diagnose (and fix) this mysterious problem? I now have a media project that I need to complete within the next week or so, but I won't be able to do it if I can't use Adobe Premiere, so I will greatly appreciate any help.
Thank you.
Mac mini, macOS 14.6