Black squares around everything I click

[jmeeter]

All of a sudden there is a black square around everything I click. For example, an icon the desktop - I click it and suddenly there's a black border around it. I click off on the desktop somewhere, the black square goes away. What gives?

IN this screenshot, look at the red icon for closing Firefox



And in this icon, a black border around the file browser

 

[dtravis7]

Open System Preferences and then Universal Access. Be sure VoiceOver it turned off.

 

[jmeeter]

That was it, thanks a lot my man.

 

[lambdatoys]

Thanks for the fix, but what caused it to happen? What caused the voice over to be turned on? Seems odd... But thanks again for the fix, it was driving me crazy

 

[Collin Bl]

My take on the issue is typing - when ones typing is a bit quick and in my case a bit sloppy eg a 3 key combination is registered unknowingly it could be the command to change a setting. There seems to a heaps of built in commands - try placing typing insertion cursor between two letters of one word and hit Control T

 

[gaddlord]

Thanks. That helped me too.

 

[wick@wickbeaver]

Man, I was ready to throw my keyboard at my monitor and re-load Leopard.
THANK YOU for this being here!
And it googled alarmingly big brother-like. "Black squares around everything in Mac OS 10.5". Boing. Right here.
So, now how do I make html emails?
Next!

 

[THANKYOUSOMUCH!]

Thanks!

Open System Preferences and then Universal Access. Be sure VoiceOver it turned off.

OMG You Saved My Life THANKYOU SO MUCH!!!! the top buttons- F1,F2,F3 etc... didnt work either but now they do!!!!! Also when u plug in headphones in narrates everything u do and it was DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! Thankyou!!!

 

[Shredder2600]

Same here! I'm using Mac OS X 10.5.8. What happened was that I had Safari open, I minimized it and opened Finder, exited out of Finder, opened Pages, and when I passed my mouse over icons in the dock, they would become black squares or the blue dot below the application would turn into a black square. I also started moving a folder on the desktop around and it make the screen black wherever I dragged it! This has happened many times! Even when I turn the monitor off and turn it back on, the black is still there! I have to restart the computer to get the black squares off, but eventually they will come back! Please help me!

 

[toMACsh]

Thanks for the fix, but what caused it to happen?

The OP has a cat.

 

[bobtomay]

Same here! I'm using Mac OS X 10.5.8. What happened was that I had Safari open, I minimized it and opened Finder, exited out of Finder, opened Pages, and when I passed my mouse over icons in the dock, they would become black squares or the blue dot below the application would turn into a black square. I also started moving a folder on the desktop around and it make the screen black wherever I dragged it! This has happened many times! Even when I turn the monitor off and turn it back on, the black is still there! I have to restart the computer to get the black squares off, but eventually they will come back! Please help me!

Why not try reading post # 2.