How can I monitor starting applications -> mysterious Dock icon

[nerdbert]

Sorry, but this might be a little too complicated for a single topic line...

Since a few days something randomly appears in the dock for a split second. It doesn't stay on for enough time to really see what it is.

I've tried to narrow it down but I couldn't find anything in the logs. All I know is that perceived by peripheral vision, it looks similar to the Console icon.

I'd really like to know, since this behavior is quite suspicious.

Is there an app recording the start of a new process? Alternatively I could make a screenshot every 125ms, but that's not really an elegant solution (plus an image of this icon might not help).


One last note: I haven't installed anything except Lyx and ProVoc recently.

 

[Cerebrus' Maw]

Off the top of my head, if it is an actual application, there should be something in the console, might be a bit hard to track down, but it would be a start...

 

[nerdbert]

Ok, this time it took a little longer than normal and it looks like a script (grey box with some small letters on the upper left).

I read the logs again and it seems to be something Vuze/Azureus starts whenever a torrent finishes. On closer inspection they seem to have a version of mplayer in their latest version, which they use as their "internal" player. I don't know why it opens and aborts right after completion of a torrent - if I select a movie in Azureus and hit play it works as advertised (just tested this).


For me this is another reason to abandon Vuze. Azureus was really great feature and stability wise. Plus I like the fact that it was written in Java - it's the app I show to people who claim that Java isn't fast enough for anything serious.
The Vuze concept isn't so bad either, but the way they try to force it on me gets annoying. And I already have Quicktime, VLC and mplayer on my HDD - I don't need another version of those with a fancy skin but no preferences. The trouble it can cause outweighs convenience (mysterious dock icon popping up for over a week versus potentially sparing me one click).