Every now and then, an alert pops up on my computer, but doesn't go to the front of the screen. I end up having to restart my computer because I can't click to find the application and stuff. Is there some way to fix this?
Pages, iTunes, Safari, something called Scratch which can't create true alerts (it's not the problem), Growl, and a bunch of other stuff that runs in the status bar.
Have you tried disabling Spaces and seeing if that fixes the issue? Could be that the alert is, for whatever reason, going to a different space and that's why you're not seeing it.
I've seen behavior somewhat like this, but the alert is always visible, it just isn't in the front like it's supposed to be. Moving/minimizing/closing windows until I locate it is the solution, although I've always considered it something of an OS-level interface bug that a blocking alert can be hidden by other windows in the same app.
You might also try the "show individual app in Expose" method and see if that shows you windows that don't normally respond to Expose--that's what this hint claims:
Re: Spaces - I've had similar issues (hence my question to the OP); e.g. where an app "splits" itself over more than one Space, so that the document window ends up in one Space but dialog boxes open up in another space. very confusing until you figure it out.
I've had it happen with Illustrator CS5 and Max, amongst others.