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Applications Run But Windows Disappear

S

spimp31

macrumors member
Original poster
I'm starting to feel severely disappointed with Leopard. I didn't have this problem the first few days, but the last two days several applications will be open and running but the application window disappears. The main programs I've been having problems with are iTunes and Entourage. iTunes will display the application menu and act as if iTunes is open, but I can't get the program to actually display, even if it's playing music. The commands on music files work, but I can't get the equalizer or any other "window related" command to function properly. Similar story with Entourage. My inbox will not show up or disappear after awhile, and if I go to send a new email from the menu, only the recipient field will display, but not the newly created message.

It seems to mainly be an issue with these two applications, but it wasn't doing this the first couple of days. The only solution is to restart, which usually results in the problem reoccurring. Is anyone else experiencing this? I tend to think it's an issue with the graphics card, or some kind of graphics-related issue. I'm running a Core Duo 2.16 GHz iMac with a GB of RAM.
 
spimp31 said:
I'm starting to feel severely disappointed with Leopard. I didn't have this problem the first few days, but the last two days several applications will be open and running but the application window disappears. The main programs I've been having problems with are iTunes and Entourage. iTunes will display the application menu and act as if iTunes is open, but I can't get the program to actually display, even if it's playing music. The commands on music files work, but I can't get the equalizer or any other "window related" command to function properly. Similar story with Entourage. My inbox will not show up or disappear after awhile, and if I go to send a new email from the menu, only the recipient field will display, but not the newly created message.

It seems to mainly be an issue with these two applications, but it wasn't doing this the first couple of days. The only solution is to restart, which usually results in the problem reoccurring. Is anyone else experiencing this? I tend to think it's an issue with the graphics card, or some kind of graphics-related issue. I'm running a Core Duo 2.16 GHz iMac with a GB of RAM.
Click to expand...
Never heard of this kind of thing on Leopard. Tiger had an issue with some applications not being able to "hide" the windows in some situations.

The only thing I can suggest is to try all the obvious things like updating your software frequently, and using the disk Utility (or DiskWarrior) to check the permissions etc. Especially if you are using Parallels, make sure that it's all up to date.

This kind of thing can sometimes happen if you are manually moving junk around on the HD also or adding programs that are for meant for older OS versions's. So if you were trying to use an older iTunes app on Leopard that might be a reason.

Entourage is a big buggy POS so there could be almost anything wrong with that. I would concentrate on the iTunes problem.
 
Virgil-TB2 said:
Never heard of this kind of thing on Leopard. Tiger had an issue with some applications not being able to "hide" the windows in some situations.

The only thing I can suggest is to try all the obvious things like updating your software frequently, and using the disk Utility (or DiskWarrior) to check the permissions etc. Especially if you are using Parallels, make sure that it's all up to date.

This kind of thing can sometimes happen if you are manually moving junk around on the HD also or adding programs that are for meant for older OS versions's. So if you were trying to use an older iTunes app on Leopard that might be a reason.

Entourage is a big buggy POS so there could be almost anything wrong with that. I would concentrate on the iTunes problem.
Click to expand...

All my software's up to date, I'm not running Parallels, and I haven't installed any new applications or done anything of consequence to my HDD since upgrading. The disk permissions are fine. It's definitely not an issue of it hiding windows. I'll have iTunes open, switch to Safari, and come back to iTunes (never minimizing or closing the window) and all I have is my iTunes menu, no program. I'm puzzled but it's really getting old, seeing how the only way to resolve it is to reboot.
 
spimp31 said:
I'm starting to feel severely disappointed with Leopard. I didn't have this problem the first few days, but the last two days several applications will be open and running but the application window disappears. The main programs I've been having problems with are iTunes and Entourage. iTunes will display the application menu and act as if iTunes is open, but I can't get the program to actually display, even if it's playing music. The commands on music files work, but I can't get the equalizer or any other "window related" command to function properly. Similar story with Entourage. My inbox will not show up or disappear after awhile, and if I go to send a new email from the menu, only the recipient field will display, but not the newly created message.

It seems to mainly be an issue with these two applications, but it wasn't doing this the first couple of days. The only solution is to restart, which usually results in the problem reoccurring. Is anyone else experiencing this? I tend to think it's an issue with the graphics card, or some kind of graphics-related issue. I'm running a Core Duo 2.16 GHz iMac with a GB of RAM.
Click to expand...


I am having the same problem. I fixed it by using spaces until something is figured out.
 
Thanks for posting this. My MBP is now doing the exact same thing. Finder keeps crashing (usually while in cover flow) and applications are open but nowhere to be found. Not in any spaces etc... Up till now everything has been awesome. But this evening my Safari has been crashing a lot also. Don't know what to do so just gonna wait it out a bit.
 
tjcampbell said:
Thanks for posting this. My MBP is now doing the exact same thing. Finder keeps crashing (usually while in cover flow) and applications are open but nowhere to be found. Not in any spaces etc... Up till now everything has been awesome. But this evening my Safari has been crashing a lot also. Don't know what to do so just gonna wait it out a bit.
Click to expand...

I had created a topic on this earlier this week as mine didnt start on my macbook for 2 days after I installed leopard and nobody replied to it. Now it is getting worse but as I said spaces has cured my problem for now. Did yours just start all of a sudden or just after you installed? My mac pro or Imac neither one is experiencing this problem.
 
I almost feel like my problems started AFTER I turned on spaces and then disabled it. Since I've disabled Spaces I haven't had any luck getting the windows to appear correctly.

I never really put it together, but it's DEFINITELY an issue with spaces. Now that I've turned it back on, it found iTunes in space 2. It's very odd that even when disabled Spaces seems to sometimes put applications into non-existent spaces as if it's running.

I also found that spaces wasn't working as advertised. My adium was docked to the right side of my screen and available in every space, yet it would only show up in Space 2/6.

Combined, I have to wonder if there aren't some serious problems with how Spaces handles your settings. For example, adium was originally in space 2, but then went to all spaces, and worked properly for maybe half an hour. It's as if Spaces reverts back to previous settings, or remains on even if it's unusable.
 
Applications Run But Windows Disappear

I've had this problem as well. I am using Spaces and sometimes when I return to a space all the windows from a certain application (such as Safari) are invisible in that space. I can see the window titles from the 'Window' menu, and if I select one of the missing windows I get shunted to the correct space, but no window is shown.

I find the simplest solution is to quit Safari and relaunch it and 'Reopen all windows from last session'

- Jeff -
 
+1. Firefox did that to me this A.M. Spaces running, but the window disappeared in front of my eyes.
 
Same problem for me. I need to type Apple+H twice to bring the applications back. It's a problem with the "Hide application" functionnality.
 
Force Quit seems to work

I too am having this problem (Excel is the latest). If find that I can right click on the dock icon and quit (I can, but nothing happens). Since I can't get to the top menu line, that quit isn't an option. Force quitting and restarting seems to fix the problem (until the next time). Not an elegant solution, but perhaps better than a complete restart. The double hide may be a better trick though

Michael
 
I also experimented with Spaces when I first installed leopard and then disabled it. One of the programs I had put into a Space was iTunes. Lately I have had the problem of iTunes disappearing. After reading your posts, I turned Spaces back on and I could retrieve the window by using the appropriate Space. Then I enabled iTunes to be shown in all Spaces and low and behold it shows back up. I then disabled Spaces (because I don't have a use for it) and so far it seems to be holding.
Try that and hopefully it will work until we get an update.
 
Solution

If you are no longer using spaces go into System Preferences..., enable spaces, delete all of the applications in the spaces Application Assignments list and then disable spaces.

Rock On
 
Yeah, someone mentioned about the Spaces..

Enabling Spaces and making sure your applications are deleted, and disabling Spaces, seems to fix this problem...
I was having the same issue.

What I had done was reinstall Leopard, but I did a "System Preferences" restore from .Mac, so this started the issue. Then I enabled Staces for the "first time" after reinstalling Leopard, and then disabled it, so then my applications re-appeared... Hopefully this helps out..


** Leopard doesn't need to be reinstalled, that's just what I did that caused my issue. **
 
disappearing windows

Leopard is driving me nuts. The latest but not the only problem is in mail, safari, photoshop, and bridge the windows disappear after about 4-5 min. I took the computer to the Mac store and the genius says he has never heard of such a thing. I could not get it to happen at the Mac store so the suggestion was to reinstall the operating system. I did an archive and install. Didn’t help. Went back to the genius and again couldn’t get it to happen in the store. He suggested I do a clean install. Didn’t help. I hooked a laptop up to the monitor to see if it was the monitor. Not the monitor. No other application windows seem to be effected and I have tried 4 different plugs in the house on different circuits to be sure it is not some weird electrical problem. Any Help out there?😕😡
 
I had this happen also when I installed DOCKER

It has a HIDE BACKGROUND APPLICATIONS box that can be checked

Un-checking it brings all back to normal
 
I had this problem when I first had Leopard and used spaces. Seems to have gone away now... and I still use spaces, for reference.
 
alive and well...

I have this problem fairly regularly - typically with adobe products, but then I am typically using adobe products. To me it seems like a spaces issue, but I am not sure how to determine that.

Much more frequently I have applications whose windows move around from space to space - I will be working on a document in one application (say Photoshop), switch to another application (say InDesign) in a different space, and then when I switch back to Photoshop, it is confused about which space its window should be in. Often this means I get switched to the correct space, but the document window moves to the InDesign space.

It seems that Spaces is not happy, but I have found little discussion online about its woes. Any tips would be most appreciated!

(These behaviors appear on both a 24" iMac 2.4Ghz and a 13" MacBook 2.2Ghz; both machines are fully up to date thanks to Software Update)

Bart
 
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