The attched patch (debug_mwe_001.diff) is a minimal working example that demonstrates the issue on all three platforms (X11, W32, NS) using the GUI version of Emacs built from the master branch as of 04/08/2019 (a038df77de7b1aa2d73a6478493b8838b59e4982). The snippet that I am pasting and evaluating in the minibuffer is as follows: (progn (find-library "simple") (fundamental-mode) (blink-cursor-mode -1) (global-eldoc-mode -1) (setq timer-list nil timer-idle-list nil crosshairs t)) Here are Youtube links to screen recordings of the minimal working example on all three platforms: NS (screen recording): https://youtu.be/4IzXfP2j2GY X11 (screen recording): https://youtu.be/zrRH72qdmx0 W32 (screen recording): https://youtu.be/cfIG4fbkesY MINIMAL WORKING EXAMPLE: 1. Imaginary / Pretend: We imagine that all fake cursors are erased at the outset of update_window while w->current_matrix is still valid; i.e., before scrolling_window does its thing. 2. The master cache of fake cursors (w->ch_cache) is set to Qnil. 3. Imaginary / Pretend: We imagine .... As to the rows in the w->desired_matrix that must be updated with update_text_area, we draw fake cursors immediately after draw_glyphs finishes updating the row. As we are laying fake cursors, we use a temporary cache (w->mc_temp_cache) to store the relevant data so that we can redraw any fake cursors that get erased because they are left/right_overwritten as determined by draw_glyphs. Once the row has been updated with fake cursors, we set the termporary cache (w->mc_temp_cache) to Qnil and we set the master cache with the new data -- appending new data if the cache is non-nil. 4. As to all remaining rows that are not updated with update_text_area (which uses w->desired_matrix), we use the w->current_matrix and draw/cache the fake cursors using the same approach as mentioned in the preceding step; i.e., a temporary cache (w->mc_temp_cache) so that we can fix any fake cursors that got left/right_overwritten and then that cache is set to Qnil and the master cache (w->mc_cache) is updated. In the above minimal working example, the window Lisp_Object caches are rather simple: '((make_fixnum (1)) (make_fixnum (2)) (make_fixnum (3)) ... (make_fixnum (99)))