Corrupted aliases on Dock?

The shortcuts/aliases on the Dock on my MacBook Air become "corrupted," and overwritten with a black question mark. They must the be removed, and replaced. How can I avoid this?

They usually become corrupt when the destination is moved. If that's not the case then the plist file might be corrupt. You can set it back to defaults by deleting:
MacIntosh HD/Your user library name/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
Logoff/Login and move new icons to the dock.
OT: I drove the X5 on the factory offroad course.. It was a blast!
Regards,
Captfred

Similar Messages

Aliases in Dock continually losing the application

I am having a problem with aliases in the dock continually losing their application. When I click on an alias it shows a question mark. I recreate it and put it back into the dock but a day later I am having the same problem. I know how to blow away the damaged one and replace it but this is getting to be a big problem.
Any Help will be appreciated.

try deleting dock's preference file.
Trash the file com.apple.dock.plist from homedirectory/Library/Preferences
and restart Dock. To restart Dock enter the following command in terminal
*killall Dock*

How do I fix a corrupted Finder icon in the Dock

Hello,
My Finder icon has spontaneously corrupted in the Dock. The icon of the Finder.app (in the CoreServices folder) is perfectly fine and its icon the Resources folder of the Dock.app is also perfectly fine.
Yet, the icon of Finder is corrupted in the dock as shown here: http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/2973/dockimage.png and in the picture below
Any ideas, anyone?
My specs are as follows:

Have you tried removing all files containing com.apple.dock from the Preferences folder in your HOME Library folder and in the ByHost subfolder of the Preferences folder, then restarting the Dock (or logout/login)?
(To get to the home Library folder, hold option key down while using the Finder Go menu, select Library. Or use the "Go to Folder...." option and paste in
~/Library/Preferences .)
charlie

User interface corrupted on new iMac 24

Hi,
Does anyone else experienced graphic corruptions on 10.5 with a brand new iMac 24?
By corruption I mean dock bottom becoming black, black rectangles in icons, images scrambled, etc...
Thanks.

After logging in as a root user, everything is fine, so the corruption must be in the user folder. I noticed a process that was having trouble running called Screenreader, it was marked in red and I couldn't make it quit. Maybe that is the problem. I'm trying to replace my user folders from a backup.

Dock icons

I have system 10.4.10 on my intel iMac. Before 10.4.10, the dock icons appeared OK. Now few of the dock icons turned into a question mark. When I move the mouse pointer to the question mark icon, I can see the application name and it launches fine. If I drag the question mark icon off the dock, and replace it with the appropriate application, it works a few day then the application icon is replaced with a question mark icon again.
Any idea why it happened like that? It did not happen with the OS X 10.4.7.

Hi trangle, Welcome to Apple Discussions.
The question mark on an icon generally means it has lost its association with the application. But it seems this is not the case with your icons because you can continue to launch your apps from them.
My best guess would be that is some corruption in your Dock preferences. Go to ~(yourHome)/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist and trash that file. Then log out and back in or restart. YOu'll have to reset your Dock the way you like it.
-mj
[email protected]

Dock Issues.

I feel like my mac has been acting up a lot lately with various freezing issues but this one is just plain weird.
My dock is in a state of freeze. If i open an app, that app opens but the indicator on the dock doesn't show that the app is open.
If I right-click on that app's icon to close it, i cant. I just gives me the "open" commands as if the app wasn't already active.
Is there a way to fix this, perhaps to reset my dock?
Thanks.
OT: If i wanted to do a fresh reinstall, i could back up from a timemachine save right?

In Finder, click Go>Go to Folder..., and type ~/Library/Preferences, and hit enter. Find the files "com.apple.Dock.plist" and "com.apple.Dock.db", and move them to your desktop. Those are preference files for the dock, which are probably corrupt. Your dock will reset to default after the next step.
Then type shift⌘U in Finder, open Terminal, type killall Dock and press enter. That command will relaunch your dock, so new, non-corrupt preference files can be generated.
Good luck!
Message was edited by: joshz

No option to assign app to desktop

On my iMac some of my apps do not have the option to assign them to specific desktops. Yet on my MBA those same apps do. So I figure I've got an option messed up somewhere but no idea where. Anyone got an idea?
Thank you.

I'm not sure, but I think there may be a very low limit on the number of apps that can be assigned to specific desktops. AppleCare thought it might be corruption of the Dock PList and had me delete it. But the problem keeps coming back and it seems to be after I've assigned a number of apps to specific desktops I am unable to assign any more. Not sure that is the case, but that seems to be how it appears at the moment.

Corrupt Dock File?

Hi,
So on my dock, I have my Applications Folder on it to use as a shortcut, but just recently, it started to display two of every application. See my picture:
I also have my Downloads Folder on my Dock. When I drag things from the Downloads folder into the trash can, nothing happens. But then when I click +Show In Finder+, it shows the file as deleted.
So it seems my Dock is not refreshing or something? So what I did to fix it was just remove the Applications and Downloads Folders from the Dock, and drag the Applications and Downloads folder from my hard drive to the dock. But everytime I log back in or download something else, the problem will arise again.
Do I have a corrupt dock file? I didn't want to try messing with that until I consulted +Apple Discussions+ first.
Thanks, Alex

if recreating those stacks doesn't help try resetting your dock preference file. delete the file /users/user/library/preferences/com.apple.dock.plist and enter the following terminal command
killall Dock
your dock will be rest to the default. see if the problem goes away.

I TUNE IN MY MAC MINI COULD NOT BE OPENED. WHEN I CLICK THE I TUNES ON THE DOCK, I GET A PROPMT SAYING THE, "THIS COPY OF ITUNES IS CORRUPTED OR NOT INSTALLED CORRECTLY. PLEASE RE-INSTALL ITUNES. -42037. WHAT I SHOULD DO PLEASE?

I TUNE IN MY MAC MINI COULD NOT BE OPENED. WHEN I CLICK THE I TUNES ON THE DOCK, I GET A PROPMT SAYING THE, "THIS COPY OF ITUNES IS CORRUPTED OR NOT INSTALLED CORRECTLY. PLEASE RE-INSTALL ITUNES. -42037. WHAT I SHOULD DO PLEASE? wasantharama

If I were you, I would reinstall itunes. BACKUP ALL YOUR ITUNES MEDIA TO AN EXTERNAL STORAGE DEVICE BEFORE DOING THIS PLEASE.

Illustrator has not been responding for over a week, I can't open or force quit it. I've already uninstalled, reinstalled, and deleted the preferences folder, but the icon in my dock seems corrupt and is causing the program to not respond and I can't dele

Illustrator has not been responding for over a week, I can't open or force quit it. I've already uninstalled, reinstalled, and deleted the preferences folder, but the icon in my dock seems corrupt and is causing the program to not respond and I can't delete it.

Tamara,
Did you reinstall using the full three step way (otherwise strange things may linger)?
Uninstall (ticking the box to delete the preferences), run the Cleaner Tool, and reinstall.
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

Can't add files or file aliases to the dock

I can't add files or file aliases to the dock. All the help viewer says about this is this issue?
"If you can't add icons to your Dock, your administrator may be preventing you from doing so."
I am the administrator of this computer, as it turns out. What is the solution to

Hi Wagnerian, Welcome to Apple Discusswions.
When adding files or folders to the Dock, they must go to the right side of the hairline (the same side that Trash is on).
If this what you are doing and it still doesn't work navigate to /Users/YourHome/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist and delete that file. then log out and back in or restart. (You'll have to reset your Dock the way you like it)
-mj
[email protected]

Finder icon in dock is corrupted

Hi all
Today I had the dreaded "dock keeps crashing" problem. That was due to a few photoshop jpgs I put on the downloads folder which weren't properly previewed. After I moved them away, the dock came back, however the finder icon has been damaged somehow.
See the picture (upper border): http://i3.tinypic.com/7x8qedc.png
When I switch apps (command + tab), the same damaged icon is there.
How to get my nice finder icon back to normal?
Thanks!

Hello,
The resource image for the Finder icon in the Dock is located here:
HD/System/Library/CoreServices/Dock/Contents/Resources/finder.png
Control-Click on the Dock app and choose from the contextual menu, "Show Package Contents", to access the Contents/Resources Folders and the Finder .png image is there.
Drag the finder.png file to the Preview app in the Dock to open it. (If you have Preview there, if not you can find it in the Applications Folder of your HD).
Does the image look corrupted in the Preview window?
If yes, then this file will in all likelihood need to be replaced with a good one. We'll look into that if necessary.
If no, then all you may have to do is trash your Dock Preferences. Go to:
+HD/Users/(Your Home Folder)/Library/Preferences+
Drag the "com.apple.dock.db" and the "com.apple.dock.plist" files to the Trash but do not empty the trash.
Restart your Mac. You will probably have just the Default set of icons in your Dock afterwards and so you will have to put the ones back that you want. If you have any problems then put the files from the Trash back into the Preferences Folder, replacing the other ones...Restart...your Dock should be back as was.
(You can also drag the finder.png file to the Desktop. It will automatically make a copy there).
This should be enough to get you going. Report back.
pwilson
BTW- Be careful in the System Folder.

Any way to standardize desktop (dock, Aliases) between several Macs?

I use 5 different Macs, and would like to make all the desktops look exactly the same. The apps are mostly the same, but I can't just use a clone of the disk because the data (and disk size) are all different. All I want is for my dock (with the folders containing aliases to apps) and other aliases to apps on the desktop to be the same on all so that everything is where I expect to find it no matter which machine I'm sitting at. Is there any such convenient solution? Other than cloning the whole disk, surely someone who manages a lab of 100 Macs for students or something like this has a clever way of deploying the same experience for multiple computers?

I do that by syncing my laptop iCal with my iPod, and then moving my iPod to my desktop and importing the calendars. The way this works is kind of clumsy, maybe because I don't know better. But what I have to do is delete the calendars from my desktop computer that I want to update, and then import the new ones from the iPod. Then I have to reset the colors on the calendars I just imported. It's not a perfect solution, but it works well enough.

Dock Icons Corrupted

For several weeks now, when I restart I often lose a few dock icons. They turn into question marks or the application icon is replaced by a completely unrelated document icon which opens some image in Preview. I restart more often than I might otherwise because I use Boot Camp for some Windows software that I need for work. I also run the Boot Camp partition from Parallels (and very recently upgraded it to 3.0).
Programs that vanished recently from the dock (not all at once) included NVu, iMovie HD, Garageband, and iDVD.
At about the same time, on each restart Preview opens with a particular image file (a screen shot of Preferences showing a black circle around Universal Access).
I can drag the corrupted icon out of the dock (it vanishes normally) and drag in the application's icon. All is well until my next restart. Then it's Dock Roulette -- which programs will be gone this time?
I've verified my boot drive with Disk Utility and fixed permissions.
This began slightly before I installed 10.4.10 combo updater (intel of course). I hoped the updater would cure it, but no such luck.
MacBook Core Duo, 2 GHz, 2G RAM, 160GB HD Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Sounds really strange. You might want to delete the Dock preferences (com.apple.dock.plist) which can be found at Users/yourname/Library/Preferences. Maybe it's corrupted.

Dock gets corrupted on Iintel machines/10.4 after restoring from disk image

Hi all,
I run a script at home that creates an image of my boot disk every night (it reboots into another volume, runs SuperDuper! and boots back into boot volume. I also use master disk images to deploy Macs at work. Every time an image is restored the dock becomes a mess, it looks something like this:
http://a-world.net/files/dockmess1.jpg
...random icons pointing to random files, example, this is what used to be a Firefox icon, not:
http://a-world.net/files/dockmess2.jpg
This only happens on Intel Macs and started to happen recently after one the system updates. It wasn't happening under 10.4.6 I think but it started some time after.
What's even weirder is that restoring com.apple.dock.plist from backup (Retrospect) doesn't seem to help, the prefs get corrupted anyway. Is there any other prefs file responsible for maintaining links betwen items in the Dock and originals? By the way desktop shortcuts do not get messed up, only the dock.
Any ideas? This is very annoying. Thanks.

This behavior is happening to quite a few of our computers. What they all have in common is that they are Intel Macs that have been upgraded to 10.4.10. I have verified on our test boxes that the problem does not occur with 10.4.9, then appears in 10.4.10. Don't know why.

Corrupted aliases on Dock?

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