Program Stuck In Dock

[thriii]

Hello I'm posting because of a problem I've had lately.. sometimes my programs get stuck with the spinning wheel and force quit from the dock doesn't work, so I open up terminal and kill the app..the app quickly disappears from my screen but there is still an arrow pointing up at it from the doc. What do I do to fix this???

 

[janey]

how are you killing it?

 

[thriii]

i look up the PID and do kill PID... i heard of kill -9 PID but the program is no longer in the list for me to try

 

[Father Jack]

Sorry ... didn't read the post properly ...

 

[thriii]

Best solution to closing a problem program down is click on the Apple symbol at the top left of the screen and then click "Force quit" or use the short-cut indicated.

isnt that the same thing as right clicking in the dog and force quitting?

 

[janey]

i look up the PID and do kill PID... i heard of kill -9 PID but the program is no longer in the list for me to try

can't just try kill -9 (pid)?

what kind of apps is this happening with? and what do you mean by no longer in the list? the forcequit list or the activity monitor list or a list of running processes or..

 

[Father Jack]

isnt that the same thing as right clicking in the dog and force quitting?

You get the option to quit not force quit

 

[janey]

You get the option to quit not force quit

when an application is hanging, the quit option turns to forcequit. optionally you can hold down the option key.

 

[thriii]

You get the option to quit not force quit

is there anything i can do as far as the programs bein stuck in the dock now? what causes this problem?

 

[Father Jack]

Cheers ... you learn something new every day.

 

[janey]

is there anything i can do as far as the programs bein stuck in the dock now? what causes this problem?

the only thing i could think of is forcequit not working or it being a zombie process. it would be lovely if you could try the kill -9 if it's not a zombie process (can't kill zombies, duh).

 

[thriii]

Cheers ... you learn something new every day.

hmm? when i click the items that i killed from before it doesnt say the program name in the upper left.. so they r pretty stuck now what can i do? already tried killin dock and all that did was put the programs last on my dock

the only thing i could think of is forcequit not working or it being a zombie process. it would be lovely if you could try the kill -9 if it's not a zombie process (can't kill zombies, duh).

what is a zombie process? i guess its what im havin now but what causes them? and theres absolutely nothin to do but restart?

 

[janey]

what is a zombie process? i guess its what im havin now but what causes them? and theres absolutely nothin to do but restart?

could you try the kill -9 first? sometimes the apple forcequit sucks, there's different kill signals that do different things, and -9 is the "strongest", so to speak. use activity monitor or something like top to find the pid.

zombie processes are when a process is complete but the parent process hasn't dealt with it yet. it doesn't use any resources or anything, but I have seen it happen occasionally.

 

[thriii]

could you try the kill -9 first? sometimes the apple forcequit sucks, there's different kill signals that do different things, and -9 is the "strongest", so to speak. use activity monitor or something like top to find the pid.

zombie processes are when a process is complete but the parent process hasn't dealt with it yet. it doesn't use any resources or anything, but I have seen it happen occasionally.

the problem is i dont see the program in top anymore.. its yahoo messenger but i cant find it in there so theres no PID for me to try the -9 on it..and i did resize top to see all the processes is this normal?

 

[janey]

the problem is i dont see the program in top anymore.. its yahoo messenger but i cant find it in there so theres no PID for me to try the -9 on it..and i did resize top to see all the processes is this normal?

odd, top should show zombie processes as well. i guess there isn't much to do except wait or restart. eventually it should resolve itself. i've encountered similar issues with some other apps and usually a kill -9 or short wait resolved it.

 

[thriii]

odd, top should show zombie processes as well. i guess there isn't much to do except wait or restart. eventually it should resolve itself. i've encountered similar issues with some other apps and usually a kill -9 or short wait resolved it.

thx 4 the help ill just try kill -9 the next time instead of just kill n hopefully that works if this happens agn off to bed i go thx agn

 

[thriii]

well im having problems again... kill -9 (yahoo pid number) didnt get rid of the yahoo simble with the arrow in the dock.. so I have to restart. Is there something that causes this in programs?