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dawsonscholz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 14, 2011
7
0
So i have no idea what is going on but my desktop is being really weird. A few days ago i noticed all my icons were arranged on the top left corner of my screen. I tried to move them around but they just snap back in place. I took the grid thing off and they still do. I noticed that a lot of my icons are stacked on top of each other so i tried to move them to different areas. They wont go. I started playing around and found out that I cant right click anywhere out side of the box that my icons are in. It almost seems like part of my desktop screen isnt working which explains why my icons wont go anywhere. I can move my icons in the little space that they are in but once outside that area they just snap back into place. It almost seems like there is a boundry preventing anything to work outside of where my icons are. This is really hard to explain so I am having trouble writing this, but basically it seems like my desktop only works on the top left part of my screen....everything else on my computer seems to work fine. Anyone else having this problem?
 
That is really strange. You've turned off the "arrange by" icon feature and they all still snap up to the top left? And you can't right click anywhere else on the screen? That is totally bizarre.

Does this only happen on the desktop or every folder?

Does it happen for all users on the system or just yours (or do you only have one account)?
 
Nope, it just does it on the desktop and I have the arrange by set to none. Its really weird. If I move my icons close to the invisible border or whatever it is, the icon will partly disappear as if it is going off the screen or something. (I cant find any other way to explain it) it really frustrating. Is it possible to have a virus?
 
ok...well if there is no viruses then what the heck am I supposed to do to fix my problem? I went to into utility and repaired disk permissions, that didn't do anything. Should I restore my computer back to when it wasn't like that?...if so, how can I do it safely so that I don't lose information? I do a lot of music recording and losing those files would not be a good thing haha!
 
Do you have this problem in another user account, or just your main account that you use all the time? If you don't have another one, you should make a new one and test it.
 
Do you have this problem in another user account, or just your main account that you use all the time? If you don't have another one, you should make a new one and test it.

And no, I don't have another user account. I guess I could make another one and see if its fixed
 
If you go into your Home folder (click Finder in the Dock) and go to the Desktop folder do you have normal access to the contents?

You could also try forcing the Desktop's plist (preference file) to be recreated. To do this go to your Home folder, go to Library folder, go to Preferences folder. Find com.apple.desktop.plist and move it to the Trash (but don't empty it). Now reboot your Mac and the plist file will be recreated hopefully without your current problem. If this fixes it then you can empty the Trash.
 
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I fixed it!!....well more like it fixed itself. I was playing starcraft last night and my computer crashed (which is another problem I am having, when I play starcraft I will be playing fine and then out of no where my screen will go black and nothing I press will bring up any sort of prompt to allow me to exit the program. Its just a black screen. So the only thing I can do is shut the computer off.) anyways...that solved the problem ha. Maybe starcraft crashing was the sole reason why my computer did what it did to the desktop. I guess when you think about it, the resolution has to change for the game, so maybe it was all screwed up. Idk
 
I fixed it!!....well more like it fixed itself. I was playing starcraft last night and my computer crashed (which is another problem I am having, when I play starcraft I will be playing fine and then out of no where my screen will go black and nothing I press will bring up any sort of prompt to allow me to exit the program. Its just a black screen. So the only thing I can do is shut the computer off.) anyways...that solved the problem ha. Maybe starcraft crashing was the sole reason why my computer did what it did to the desktop. I guess when you think about it, the resolution has to change for the game, so maybe it was all screwed up. Idk

The first rule for trying to fix any issue: REBOOT!!
 
I did reboot...several times acually. I just never rebooted after starcraft crashing. I think that was what did it.
 
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