Activity Monitor only stays in the Dock

[divedude]

For some reason I can't get the Activity Monitor to show itself. It stays in the Dock and I can get it to show various activities, but when I click it to enlarge to a window, it won't. I have stopped and started it and restarted the computer several times. No luck. Two days ago I was able to see it as a window. Any suggestions on how to get it to show itself again?

 

[FJ218700]

click the dock icon

hit command-1 ?

or is that part okay? What windows do you want to see, there is a tab bar for the different activities

 

[divedude]

I have tried all that. The window I want to see is the Activity Monitor window. It contains process information. I was able to see it two days ago. Now I can not get it to come up. I have quit the Activity Monitor and restarted it, but no use, it only goes down to the Dock as an icon.

This is the same as any other Dock icon. If I click on them they open. This one doesn't anymore.

I guess I will call Apple tomorrow. Worse case, I will reinstall the OS.

 

[FJ218700]

this is overplayed, but, have you repaired disk permissions?

 

[mad jew]

I doubt OSX really needs to be reinstalled... If you use an second monitor some of the time then it could be caught off screen. Try deleting a file named com.apple.ActivityMonitor.plist from your Preferences folder and see how that goes. Do it whilst Activity Monitor is not running.

 

[FJ218700]

I doubt OSX really needs to be reinstalled... If you use an second monitor some of the time then it could be caught off screen. Try deleting a file named com.apple.ActivityMonitor.plist from your Preferences folder and see how that goes. Do it whilst Activity Monitor is not running.

good call

 

[divedude]

I doubt OSX really needs to be reinstalled... If you use an second monitor some of the time then it could be caught off screen. Try deleting a file named com.apple.ActivityMonitor.plist from your Preferences folder and see how that goes. Do it whilst Activity Monitor is not running.

Thank you mate. That did it. I have been a UNIX admin for over 27 years, but I am new to OS X, so it is good to see where some of this stuff is. And I need to figure out why it did what it did.

 

[mad jew]

Fantastic. The Preferences folder is usually a pretty good place to check at first. Corrupt preference files often cause wacky behaviour but simply removing them from the folder cleans it right up. It's like reinstalling an app but without the hassle. If removing a PLIST file doesn't work for one reason or another, then you can put it back and retain all your original settings.