Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Dock Indicator not showing up

rhett7660

rhett7660

macrumors G5
Original poster
Jan 9, 2008
14,563
4,734
Sunny, Southern California
Ok this is weird. My computer stop responding so I had to force restart finder. Now my active programs indicator is not working. How do I get it to work again? I have tried shutting down my computer and that didn't work. I deleted and re-copied over the files, but that didn't work either. Any suggestions?

Thanks
 
rhett7660 said:
Ok this is weird. My computer stop responding so I had to force restart finder. Now my active programs indicator is not working. How do I get it to work again? I have tried shutting down my computer and that didn't work. I deleted and re-copied over the files, but that didn't work either. Any suggestions?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Use Docker. Hopefully it has copies of the OSX default.

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/Docker.shtml
 
This is really weird. None of the indicators are working at all. I used the restore to apple defaults from within Docker and that didn't work either. Dang it I hope something isn't screwed up.

Anybody else have any suggestions? Is there a terminal command I can use? I have tried the "killall Dock" command and that didn't work. I also tried the "sudo killall Dock" and that didn't work. Is there something else I can try to restart the indicators?

I tried to shut down my system but now it is hanging on close, waited 15 minutes and then held down the start button on my Mac Pro. That finally worked.

My dock is now sticking when I run my curser over the icons. It will hold for a second then let me click.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
 
Sounds like you should undo whatever you did to your dock, in reference to the icon changes and indicator changes.
 
All ready turned back everything still no change. Indicator still not showing up. Is there a command to restart the indicator? Tried the killall Dock that didn't work.

Forgot to add, I am trying the " fix" can't remember exact name it is under the disk utility. Hopefully this will help.


Typing this from iPhone at work, not in front of computer.
 
Yellow..

The problem DOES NOT show up when on an account I created. The blue dot is there and it comes up when I open another program. What would you suggest I do?
 
Found a solution

It is similar but a little less "onerous". You don't have to delete all the preferences. Only one of the dock preferences.

I had a similar problem and this is what I found:
Login into another account showed me that only my account had the problem. I looked for all the dock preferences and started by deleting one by one until the problem was solved.

You have to look into the preferences folder, inside the library folder, inside your home folder.
The preference that caused the problem was com.apple.dock.plist

This is what needs to be done (at least what I did. It might be other solutions)
1 - Open Terminal (I did this before, so I didn't need to "touch" the dock while doing all this)
2 - Move the com.apple.dock.plist to the trash.
3 - On the terminal type (without quotes) "Killall Dock" and press return.

The dock should revert the default, like when Mac OS X is freshly installed. This means that applications that you placed there, or arrangements you made, will be lost.
Because I subscribe to MobileMe, I just restored the dock from there. If not, you have to add or move the applications one by one.
If you don't subscribe to MobileMe, I would suggest to take a snap shot of a visible dock (Cmnd-Shift-3 or Cmmd-Shift-4) so you can restore it as it was before.
I hope it helps.
H.
 
This still works on Lion. Had the same problem and the solution from hhojman works very quickly and easily.
 
hhojman said:
It is similar but a little less "onerous". You don't have to delete all the preferences. Only one of the dock preferences.

I had a similar problem and this is what I found:
Login into another account showed me that only my account had the problem. I looked for all the dock preferences and started by deleting one by one until the problem was solved.

You have to look into the preferences folder, inside the library folder, inside your home folder.
The preference that caused the problem was com.apple.dock.plist

This is what needs to be done (at least what I did. It might be other solutions)
1 - Open Terminal (I did this before, so I didn't need to "touch" the dock while doing all this)
2 - Move the com.apple.dock.plist to the trash.
3 - On the terminal type (without quotes) "Killall Dock" and press return.

The dock should revert the default, like when Mac OS X is freshly installed. This means that applications that you placed there, or arrangements you made, will be lost.
Because I subscribe to MobileMe, I just restored the dock from there. If not, you have to add or move the applications one by one.
If you don't subscribe to MobileMe, I would suggest to take a snap shot of a visible dock (Cmnd-Shift-3 or Cmmd-Shift-4) so you can restore it as it was before.
I hope it helps.
H.
Click to expand...

steve09090 said:
This still works on Lion. Had the same problem and the solution from hhojman works very quickly and easily.
Click to expand...

I still have this thread book marked for this reason. Glad to see it helped and glad to see it works under Lion too! I am glad I haven't had this issue again though! :)
 
Yep, that works. Thanks. (Mountain Lion).

Worth noting that after you do this your dock will be back to it's original state. i.e. The standard Apple apps you don't use will be back, and the non-standard apps you do use and added yourself will be gone, along with your minimising/magnification settings. So if you like the way it is and want to reset it once it's working again, might be worth taking a note of your configuration.

Also worth noting, after doing this my trash icon on the dock was showing empty, but had stuff in. A quick restart fixed that, I think the plist file is replaced then. i made my dock changes before rebooting, and they remained once logged back in.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back