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Missing dock and background flashing on Mavericks GM

S

sdlyr8

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 8, 2008
7
0
I just installed the GM from Mountain Lion (no previous DPs). When it rebooted after the install, I had no dock. I rebooted and still no dock, but now the desktop background flashes with about 1 second intervals between my background and a solid light gray color. Rebooted a few more times and it's a toss up which I get. Has anyone seen this or have any ideas for a fix?

Checking the Console, I see that the Dock app is crashing repeatedly when the background flashes. When the background stays like normal, there's nothing in the Console, however Dock shows up using 100% CPU. I created a new user account and I can log in fine with it, so it's something specific to my account I'm guessing. That's all I've been able to figure out so far on my own, and haven't found a single page on any forums of anyone seeing anything similar.

Next time I install on my backup machine first, then my main one :/
 
brand said:
Have you looked on the Developer forums to see if it is happening to anyone there? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Is that :rolleyes: really necessary? :)rolleyes:).

OP, it's good that the dock appears normal in another account, because that means it's probably not a problem with your installation. What software do you have on your computer? Any system utilities that might be causing a conflict?
 
open terminal and enter:

#cd /Users/*YOUR USERNAME*/Library/Preferences/
#rm -f com.apple.dock.*
#killall Dock

You'll lose your icon order, but it's the first thing I'd try. You could also just copy/rename the plist so it's non destructive.
 
five04 said:
open terminal and enter:

#cd /Users/*YOUR USERNAME*/Library/Preferences/
#rm -f com.apple.dock.*
#killall Dock

You'll lose your icon order, but it's the first thing I'd try. You could also just copy/rename the plist so it's non destructive.
Click to expand...

This was one of the first things I tried thinking it would help. I even went as far as removing all com.apple.* preferences in case it was something else, but I was still getting the same errors.

I woke up this morning to start fiddling with it again, and it's suddenly showing up. I'm afraid to reboot now in case the problem comes back, but I'll reboot tonight just to be sure and report back what happens in case anyone else runs into this.
 
Any news on this? I've just installed Mavericks and am having the exact same problems... :confused:
 
Fixed!

If anyone else has this problem and stumbles upon this post you just need to delete the system config files which are in user/library/preferences:

Preferences/com.apple.spaces.plist
Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
Preferences/com.apple.dock.db
Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.NUMBER.plist
Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.dock.NUMBER.plist
 
placidity said:
Fixed!

If anyone else has this problem and stumbles upon this post you just need to delete the system config files which are in user/library/preferences:

Preferences/com.apple.spaces.plist
Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
Preferences/com.apple.dock.db
Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.NUMBER.plist
Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.dock.NUMBER.plist
Click to expand...


This worked! Thank you so much. I was freaking out.
 
placidity said:
Fixed!

If anyone else has this problem and stumbles upon this post you just need to delete the system config files which are in user/library/preferences:

Preferences/com.apple.spaces.plist
Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
Preferences/com.apple.dock.db
Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.NUMBER.plist
Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.dock.NUMBER.plist
Click to expand...

Great post.
 
same problem but brand new user also has it

Any suggestion for why this suddenly would happen for all users?

Created a brand new user and that has it too, even worse as there's nothing on the desktop. Same blink gray/background wave/gray/ at one second intervals, same dock crash.

2011 Mini, latest Mavericks
 
So, I know this is an older thread, but I was hoping someone might check in on it as I am experiencing the same issues on my white 13" Macbook (running 10.7), but with some added complications.

All the fixes mentioned require either inputting lines into terminal or accessing folders to delete files, but I am unable to do either of those. At best, my screen displays the header bar and maybe my desktop, the pinwheel spins for a few moments, and then the blinking starts, and every thing except the background image goes away. I can not access anything. I've tried the PRM reset to no avail. When I try to boot in safe mode, the apple switches to a null symbol, and I'm dead in the water. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
 
Kainos said:
So, I know this is an older thread, but I was hoping someone might check in on it as I am experiencing the same issues on my white 13" Macbook (running 10.7), but with some added complications.

All the fixes mentioned require either inputting lines into terminal or accessing folders to delete files, but I am unable to do either of those. At best, my screen displays the header bar and maybe my desktop, the pinwheel spins for a few moments, and then the blinking starts, and every thing except the background image goes away. I can not access anything. I've tried the PRM reset to no avail. When I try to boot in safe mode, the apple switches to a null symbol, and I'm dead in the water. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
Click to expand...


Give this a try

Boot into command prompt single user mode as here

These key combinations must be pressed while powering on the machine (or while pressing the power button)

S
Command-S
Boot into single user mode (command-line)

from there, remove the files recommended by placidity in the post earlier in this thread using the rm command.

Expat

edit: You can find here
http://i1.dk/misc/apple-boot/

some useful key combos for boot. I noticed that one of the characters I tried to type after posting didn't show a character here on the forum so I decided to post this link to avoid confusion.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the input. Not sure I'm entering the command correctly in the single user mode, but when I enter in those file names, "No such file or directory" appears. Is there a precise format in which the file names and/or pathways must be entered with the rm command?
 
Good question- did you follow the part indicated below i.e. /user/library/ ? you need to cd into /user/library and ls to see if they are there. Interestingly I used the locate command and did not find these files. Also my path seems different-mine are in Library/Preferences. There is a directory called /usr but it seems empty on this machine. Since most of the processes that use plist files rebuild them on startup I might consider were it my system, the idea of going in and deleting a bunch of files in /Library/Preferences. However I have a backup where I can restore my system and I am crazy enough to do this. We either need to fins someone else here that can suggest files to delete or you are going to have to do it at random. I would cd to /Library/Preferences and then ls to see whats there on your machine. Then you can use another machine and google the different plist files to try to determine what they do. Good practice of CLI and good chance to learn more about system architecture. Yep its tedious, understand. Hopefully someone else here will have another or better suggestion because I don't see the aforementioned files in my /Library/Preferences but others.

Hope this helps

Regards
Expat
 
Thanks so much for the great reply. I'll see why I can do with the cd, etc. Thanks again.

Slàinte.
 
So, I was able to locate most of the .plist files listed in the previous posting. However, I could not locate any.db files. Each of the afore mentioned .plist files had a corresponding plist.lockfile; is that the same as the .db file? Also, for the ByHost files, I had literally hundreds of each of the dock and screensaver files. Do I need to remove them all?
 
still happening

joedec said:
Great post.
Click to expand...

Hi I tried deleting all the lines as you suggested except for preferences/com.apple.dock.db because I did not see it on my iMac. Please help the problem is still there. dock is not showing up and the screen flashes every second with black background.
 
Same problem, sporadically, on a 2011 Mini with Mavericks.

Sometimes one of the above fixes it for a while, sometimes not.
Any more information available?
Yeah, I had to go find a different computer to post the query.
 
ankh said:
Same problem, sporadically, on a 2011 Mini with Mavericks.

Sometimes one of the above fixes it for a while, sometimes not.
Any more information available?
Yeah, I had to go find a different computer to post the query.
Click to expand...


--------belated response to self---------
This fixed the problem (which did keep coming back, for about a year, but hasn't lately):

corrupted dock preferences.



Open the Finder. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder

Type or copy paste the following;

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

Click Go then move the com.apple.dock.plist file to the Trash.
 
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