Random window flashes on screen too fast to read, keeps returning...?

[ttttaylor]

here's what's happening.. . .

i'll be minding my own business, doing regular computers tasks like chatting or surfing or typing or just watching a video. all of a sudden a small window, maybe the size of the "you are not connected to the internet" window, flashes on the screen. the first time it appeared was when i was typing, so i thought maybe me hitting the spacebar was what made it disappear so quickly. but then it has happened a few times since then, and i've just caught it flicker out of the corner of my eye.

i have no idea what it is. it doesn't animate like most os x lion windows do when opened, it's literally a small flash, too quick for me to see what it is.

i've restarted, i've looked through my activity monitor (though not extremely thoroughly), turned on my firewall, and it still just happened a few minutes ago.

it's obviously not a big inconvenience, but it's kind of weirding me out just because i can't ever get to see what the damn window is.

if anyone has any suggestions on what i can do to figure this out, i would be most appreciative.

thank you so much!

 

[Comeagain?]

Can you try and get a video of it with Quicktime? Then you could slow it down to the point that you could tell what it said.

 

[Aduntu]

This is happening to me as well. Can't figure out what it is. I'm going to check console tomorrow and attempt a screen capture.

 

[ttttaylor]

This is happening to me as well. Can't figure out what it is. I'm going to check console tomorrow and attempt a screen capture.

at least it's happening to someone else, i thought it was some kind of intrusion on my system.

it'd be great if you could get a screenshot.

 

[schiotz]

I have seen it occationally (or something similar). In my case it seems to be the firewall asking if an application should listen to incoming connections, and then changing its mind and removing the dialog. In Snow Leopard it appeared whenever I ran a newly compiled MPI-enabled program, in Lion I just see the dialog flashing. It also occurs on other occations, it looks like the same dialog (no time to see it well enough to be sure, and no clue on how to trigger it).

Strange, but probably harmless.

/Jakob

 

[movieator]

I have the same thing. Was curious as to what it was myself.

Checking console, the only thing I think it could be related to is a log that "java is listening to fffff" or something along those lines.

 

[johnywalker1989]

i had too this problem. is related with java

 

[ttttaylor]

i've been checking Console for a while... and i'm 99% certain i've got my issue nailed down to this....

...any thoughts?

 

[Aduntu]

Finally caught an image of the mysterious dialog box. It is indeed a firewall prompt for java.

I started a screen recording and played around for a while. I then loaded a java test site. As soon as I ran the test the dialog showed up and disappeared. For this reason I'm confident that's what has been causing it all along.

Not sure how to fix it at this point.

 

[pasadian]

Flashing Fix

Go to the finder window menu bar and click Go [you have to hold down the option key while clicking Go to see the Library]: Go>Library>Application Support> throw away the folder that says "Facebook" unless you use Facebook video chat. This folder contains it's own Java file. If you do successfully use your Facebook video chat and I wasn't then KEEP IT THERE!. Thanks to the users tttaylor and Aduntu, they led me in the right direction. Now I have no more random flashes.

 

[Blaine19]

Flashing screen appears & disappears- Solution

I had this same problem and this is how I rectified it.

I turned off my firewall in system preferences and opened iTunes. I believe it is the iTunes asking for authorisation even though you have not opened iTunes.

You can then go back to settings and turn on your firewall after you've opened iTunes problem solved, no more quick flash screen.

However, when you Shut Down your Mac with the firewall on and re-start it you will see the flashing screen again. So turn off your firewall before shutting down and only turn it on once you open iTunes.