Dock process thrashing CPU and zoom issues

[doktordoris]

Hullo,

I happened to touch the back of my MBA and was startled to find it was very, very hot. I know this is usual and to be expected when the machine is performing demanding tasks, however all I was doing was looking at a single safari page with a few tabs, iTunes was open on its own virtual desktop and activity monitor was running. Normally this workload uses between 1% or 3% of my CPU time (I know as I take an interest in such things, hence activity monitor running, along with istat). I looked at what activity monitor had to say about my CPU cycle thief and I found it was the "dock" process. I had a look online and saw people reporting a similar problem when they had used parallels whether or not it was running. Well I have never used parallels, so I simply quit the dock process and it immediately restarted using the appropriate 0 or
so percent. So what do you think all that was about chaps?

My other concern is the pinch zoom feature often stops working in safari, if I quit safari and restart it the pinch zooming works again. But then after a day or so it happens again. WHats going on there do you suppose?

thanks for your time

 

[GGJstudios]

So what do you think all that was about chaps?

If killing the process and restarting solved the problem, and it doesn't return, I wouldn't worry about it. Processes occasionally go "haywire" and if it's not a recurring problem, it's not worth the time required to track down the cause. If it happens repeatedly, then more investigation is in order.

 

[doktordoris]

If killing the process and restarting solved the problem, and it doesn't return, I wouldn't worry about it. Processes occasionally go "haywire" and if it's not a recurring problem, it's not worth the time required to track down the cause. If it happens repeatedly, then more investigation is in order.

thanks ggj, I should have guessed you would have been the one who'd answer.

 

[GGJstudios]

thanks ggj, I should have guessed you would have been the one who'd answer.

You're welcome! Post here if it happens again and we'll dig into it.

 

[doktordoris]

it all seems to be running problem free since i killed the proc. Thanks though chief, and what do you think about pinch zooming stopping working all the time? Its happened thrice today, each time quitting and then restarting safari fixes it. Its a bit annoying though, I thought Id left odd intermittent faults behind for good when I foreswore Windows machines. I used to proudly tell my friends who asked why I stopped building my own windows machines and then buying a new MB and video card every year that I had left all that behind, along with viruses, things going wrong, and obsessively over clocking everything in sight because since going mac everything always works perfectly and never does a program even fall over let alone having to restart the machine. Now I can't say that my mac ownership has always been problem free. I wonder if Lion is worth the candle, I never had a problem with SL.

 

[GGJstudios]

Sorry, I don't have an answer for the pinch zooming issue, as I rarely touch a trackpad.... I'm much more efficient with a mouse. As for Macs being problem-free, in my experience Mac OS X is MUCH more trouble-free than any Windows version I've ever touched. However, it's not a perfect OS... none are. Many of the problems reported aren't caused by the OS at all, but rather by a particular app, user action, or other factors. All in all, I'd still prefer Mac OS X over any alternative.

 

[doktordoris]

Sorry, I don't have an answer for the pinch zooming issue, as I rarely touch a trackpad.... I'm much more efficient with a mouse. As for Macs being problem-free, in my experience Mac OS X is MUCH more trouble-free than any Windows version I've ever touched. However, it's not a perfect OS... none are. Many of the problems reported aren't caused by the OS at all, but rather by a particular app, user action, or other factors. All in all, I'd still prefer Mac OS X over any alternative.

oh crikey ggj, i would never dream of going back to windows. I was just pointing out that until these footling problems I never had a problem with os x.

 

[GGJstudios]

oh crikey ggj, i would never dream of going back to windows.

Scary thought, isn't it?

 

[doktordoris]

Scary thought, isn't it?

Scary? Quite frankly it is horrifying.