BBC iPlayer kills Dock?

[CortexRock]

When watching a show on the BBC iPlayer site, I set the programme to full screen. After a while, the screen saver kicks in, so I move the mouse to turn it off. This causes the programme being displayed to returned to 'windowed' mode, but at the same time, makes the dock disappear.

I've looked under System Preferences > Dock but no settings are changed. The only way to restore the Dock completely seems to be a restart. Force Quitting the Finder doesn't work either.

Running Firefox 2.0.0.3 with the latest Flash plug-in, under OSX Leopard 10.5.1 on my iMac 20" CoreDuo 2Ghz with 2GB RAM.

Hope someone can reproduce the error I'm getting so I know it's a problem with the BBC's programming and not my iMac...

 

[TheSpecialist]

Try Safari?

 

[CortexRock]

Same thing happens with Safari, and Camino. So it's either my machine, or the Beeb!

Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[Blue Velvet]

I haven't had any probs with fullscreen on my MBP, 10.5.1... Safari 3. Was watching some news updates and Catherine Tate in full-screen the other night.

 

[CortexRock]

Thanks BV. Seems to be specifically the OSX screensaver kicking in when in fullscreen that's causing the problem, but it doesn't happen when in windowed mode.

I've figured out how to get the Dock back again though... Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor, then select and end the Dock process.

It's very weird that the process is still shown as running, but somehow not visible on the desktop.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Seems to be specifically the OSX screensaver kicking in when in fullscreen that's causing the problem, but it doesn't happen when in windowed mode.

Ah, OK... apologies. I don't use screen savers at all. Is it the same regardless of which screen saver is running?

 

[CortexRock]

Yep... does the same thing with Mosaic, Flurry and Arabesque.

 

[Eraserhead]

Thanks BV. Seems to be specifically the OSX screensaver kicking in when in fullscreen that's causing the problem, but it doesn't happen when in windowed mode.

That the screensaver kicks in (or the screen goes to sleep) while playing flash movies is a bug which has been reported to Apple .

The solution I use is to reduce the sleep time and display shutoff time to never.

Ah, OK... apologies. I don't use screen savers at all. Is it the same regardless of which screen saver is running?

How long is the display/computer sleep time on your Mac?

 

[CortexRock]

Okay, thanks Eraserhead, I'll give your solution a go.

I usually just have a screensaver and display sleep set as Hot Corners, so I can activate them when I need to, rather than on a timer, so changing the settings won't affect me too much.

 

[Blue Velvet]

How long is the display/computer sleep time on your Mac?

I never use sleep. The Mac is almost always on, doing something or another, and when it's not, it's manually put to sleep.

 

[Eraserhead]

it's manually put to sleep.

Cool, I was thinking your laptop might be immune or something .

 

[MarshallM]

Mine does this too, how annoying!

 

[BlakTornado]

have you tried restarting the dock by typing "killall Dock" into the terminal?

I've never had this issue, myself.