Desktop inactive or frozen

I just purchased a 13" macbook. I'm able to navigate between windows and programs, but I can't activate any files on the desktop by clicking on them. I've searched the system prefs, but I can't find any way to "un-lock" the desktop. Of course, I'm able to access desktop files through the finder or the "open" tool in programs, but I can't open folders directly on the desktop by clicking the mouse.
Any suggestions...
Thanks!

When in the Finder try control clicking ('ctrl' + click the trackpad) right on the desktop ...a menu should pop up, select Get Info. When this box is now open make sure you have 'Read and Write' selected under 'Ownership and Permissions'.
Hope this works.

Similar Messages

Desktop Locked or Frozen

My desktop screen is locked or frozen so that no icons appear on it, and I am unable to drag icons onto it. The hard drive does not even appear on the desktop. Messing with the Finder preferences by making sure the HD and other options are checked has not fixed the problem.

When in the Finder try control clicking ('ctrl' + click the trackpad) right on the desktop ...a menu should pop up, select Get Info. When this box is now open make sure you have 'Read and Write' selected under 'Ownership and Permissions'.
Hope this works.

Desktop manager is frozen

I have a Blackberry Curve 8330. The desktop manager program is frozen when trying to sync. The message is "Working-Blackberry Desktop Manager". I have researched this on these boards. I uninstalled the intellisync folder, uninstalled the software and then reinstalled the software. Still frozen. I do not want to go into the registry on this work computer. Any more suggestions?

I suggest the following steps (insert plenty of reboots of your PC...not just restarts, but full power down reboots). Also, it is advised that you be logged into the PC on an account with full admin rights. Further, under Vista, use the "Run As Administrator" option for everything.
1) Remove your device OS update package from your PC (add/remove programs)
2) Cleanly uninstall the RIM DTM software:
KB02206 How to perform a clean uninstall of BlackBerry Desktop Software
3) Get a fresh download of the RIM DTM software:
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/desktop/
Choose the version that is newest and (if applicable) compatible with your PIM (if you are synchornizing via USB):
KB12268 Applications supported by BlackBerry Desktop Manager for synchronization
4) Download (to your PC) a fresh copy of your device OS package from your carrier:
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/support/downloads/download_sites.jsp
5) Install DTM to your PC
6) Install (also to your PC), the device OS package
7) Start the organizer configuration over:
KB17022 How to configure organizer applications for synchronization using BlackBerry Desktop Manager
Hopefully that will get things going again.
Good luck and let us know!
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New version BB Desktop Manager is frozen in XP

Greetings, the BB desktop manager is running but is not showing the main screen. I use Windows XP. Any idea about this issue ?

I'd try force closing the DM app, (in your PC's task window) and maybe rebooting the PC, before anything else.
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Finder/Desktop Inactive

I just installed 10.5.1. The first day I did not have a problem. Now when I click on a file or folder on the desktop it highlights, but won't open -- nothing happens. Plus when click on the desktop, the previous application I was just in (Safari, Quark, etc) is in the menu bar. Not the finder menu items. Thanks.

Sorry to be obvious, but have you tried relaunching the Finder? Or restarting the whole machine? Sounds like crash-type behavior to me.
BTW, to relaunch the Finder either choose "Force Quit" from the Apple menu, or on the keyboard: command-option-escape. Select the Finder from the list of open apps and hit the default (and only) button in the lower right: "Relaunch". You may also see if some other app is nonresponsive in the list; if you choose anything other than the Finder the button will change to "Force Quit" (you'll lose unsaved data if you do this). HTH!

Desktop is frozen

Everything on my iMac's desktop has completely frozen. My mouse and keyboard seem to work, but none of the icons or programs are responding. The most I can do right now is a hard reboot of the machine. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to fix this, or will I have to bring it right to the store?

OK, so the issue is resolved, and it falls under the category of "you've gotta be kidding me". Mac support was about to have me reinstall the operating system, when my wireless mouse stopped working. I Changed the batteries, and the entire computer went back to normal. Apparently there was enough juice to move the cursor, but not enough to activate the programs.
Mildly inconvenient, but if it provides a quick fix for someone else, it's not a total loss. But I appreciate the suggestions!

Files On Desktop Suddenly Frozen And Won't Open ??

I was writing a reply to the forum half an hour ago and needed to open a file on my desktop.
It refused to open. I can drag it about but not open it.
All the other files on the desktop are similarly frozen or dead.
The Dock appears OK and I can open programs.
I restarted the computer to no avail.
I switched it off and disconnected the power, but when it was switched on again the desktop files are still frozen. I can highlight them but not open them.
Any ideas?
PS. I can access the files by going into my users folder in the Dock, selecting the Desktop folder and opening the files from there.
Message was edited by: Ian R. Brown

More Info:-
I have run Verify Disk and Repair Disk Permissions to no avail.
Thinking back over the past few weeks I had noticed some slightly unusual behaviour which may have been building up to this.
When I started up the computer the icons would all appear on the desktop and then some of them would appear to "flash" slightly as though they were not at full brightness to begin with.
Also when I opened a folder, sometimes the icons inside would hesitate before appearing.
These symptoms were so slight that I took no real notice of them ...... I was just vaguely aware they were occurring.
I also seem to recollect on occasions, certain desktop folders not opening the first time they were double-clicked, but they always worked soon after so I thought nothing of that ........ putting it down to a temporary glitch.
An hour before this freeze occurred I had replaced the Mighty Mouse with an old Logitech wireless one and at first thought that might be the cause, but swopping back to the Mighty Mouse changed nothing!

Remote desktop ctrl+alt+delete

I need to be able to ctrl+alt+delete on something that is frozen on my remote desktop from my mac. If I use command + option + escape, it will force quite the remote desktop client but not the program that is running on my remote desktop that is frozen. Any suggestions?

Search the Discussion Board using "ctrlaltdel" as the string. There are a number of possible solutions posted, including key remappers and external keyboards. kierrep posted the following answer earlier this month, and the questioner gave the post a star:
Try "input remapper" instead:
http://www.olofsson.info/
this programm is amazing for windows on a mac!
-it enables the fn-keys (for display brightnes and volume)
-the right click is the second enter key on your key board
-fn-eject works like print screen
-for contorl-alt-delte: fn-ctrl-alt-backspace (of course: delete = fn-backspace)
Just an advice: if you have problems or questions about boot camp, try http://forum.onmac.net/
It is a nice forum and almost every question has already been discussed there. Just use the search function.
Powerbook G4, iBook, MacBook, iMac, HP n6220 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

[Solvedish] KDE 4.10.4 - Plasma Desktop becomes unresponsive.

Anyone else having issues with the latest KDE? On my 64bit machine, using a newer nvidia card, after I open an app, the entire desktop becomes unresponsive. It also gives me an error about Knotify crashing. I can't click the menu button, no right-click options appear, and nothing on the taskbar can be manipulated. When in this state, I can still launch TF2 or Kerbal Space Program from Steam, but when I exit the game the desktop is still frozen, until I do a reboot.
My 32-bit machine hasn't done any of this, running on an old nvidia card.
I've tried deleting ~/.kde4, but even a default profile does this. Anyone have any idea what I could try to do to diagnose or fix what is wrong?
Last edited by Beelzebud (2013-06-18 00:15:14)

Ok this is a werid one. It did this all last night, and yet I just booted it, and it seems to be working fine. I guess it just needed to rest while I was at work. Problems like this are annoying.
Why glitch out all night, but be fine after a cold boot? Oh well, I guess it's working again. lol

Desktop screensaver freezes

my desktop screensaver is frozen with pinwheel just sitting there for hours. What to do?

I hope that is not your
solution.
Shut down and reboot?
Its ok , Thanks for trying .
I found the solution on another website.
The answer is going to FInder
then GO TO
and going to the library and deleting
the
com.apple.desktop.plist
file
restart and issue will dissapear

Powerbook AL 17" dose not startup from Desktop clone, Complex OS crash

Just got 17” PB, G4, 1.66. Need to have it be a clone of my desktop (DT), a G5 running 10.3.9. Using both SuperDuper and CCC, as I have done without ay problem for the last six years, with an iBook and an almost three year old 15”AL PB, I have cloned the DT HD to the 17” PB, and, at restart, the PB hangs at different stages of the boot, from blue death screen to starting printing or internet services. The furthest I have gotten is half a desktop, with dock, frozen mouse dead clock and no icons. I have done the following:
Run fsck, permissions repair, clear caches, reset pram, booted in safe mode, booted in open firmware and reset nv-ram etc (this is actually how I got to the frozen desktop), used DiskWarrior on both the PB disk, and then on the disk from which I was cloning, before trying again.
To test the PB I re-installed Tiger, and all was well. So this is not a hardware problem. To make sure that my software was not corrupted, I cloned the desktop to the 15” PB. All is well there also. Please do not tell me to install Tiger unless there is a compelling reason.
So what I don’t get, is why the same desktop HD can successfully clone itself to the 15” model PB and not to the 17” one. Same processor type, speed bumped from 1.33 to 1.66, a minor increment.
Thank you for any info you can offer

you could try putting G5 in target mode, hook it up to 17"
PB and try selecting G5 as a boot drive, see if it boots - if not, OS is missing proper resources for 17" PB.

IMac froze, rebooted but finder stuck in crash loop...

I have an iMac 2007 running Mavericks. Recently it has started occasionally freezing where my mouse still moves around the screen but everything on the desktop is completely frozen. After holding the on/off switch to reboot it usually comes back on and opens the folders/programs that were already in use and all is well.
However, today was different....it froze while I was using Safari....so I held the on/off switch as usual to reboot and the usual pop-ups appeared, asking me to re-open programs etc. However, since then I can't get finder to open...I have a constant flashing message saying "Last time you opened finder, it unexpectedly quit while re-opening windows. do you want to try to re-open windows again. - It gives 2 options 'don't reopen and re-open'....but the box is continually flashing very second as though it is stuck in a loop....doesn't matter what I try to press, it does the same thing over and over. It means I can access anything on my dock but cannot see my desktop files or any other files on the hard drive. I haven't done a time machine backup for a long time so wary of my next move. Ironically, I just bought a new drive for time machine and this happened before I got the chance to do the backup!!! Typical.
Other useful info may be that I think I only have around 3gb of free memory space on my hard drive right now.
I am on version 10.9.4 of Mavericks and there is a software update available.....should I try to do the software update to see if it irons this problem out or is there anyway I can backup my hard drive first or any other way of accessing my hard drive/desktop files before I do anything?
I have seen this problem related to Google Drive before but I don't use that...unless it is installed somewhere on my system without me knowing and still causing the problem?
Any help greatly appreciated....
Thanks

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
For this step, the title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the name of the crashed application or process. For example, if iTunes crashed, you would enter "iTunes" (without the quotes.)
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Select the messages from the time of the last crash, if any. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Step 2
In the Console window, select
          DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ User Diagnostic Reports
(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of crash reports. The name of each report starts with the name of the process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report related to the process in question. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste topost the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.
If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful.

Cannot delete movie file from iTunes

After converting movie file via Quicktime and adding it to the iTunes library, I am not able to remove it anymore. If you try to delete it, it crashes iTunes and after that all desktop icons are frozen. The movie does not play in iTunes, you cannot edit its info without crashing iTunes either. Movie plays in preview pane in Finder....
Is there any other way to remove the file from iTunes?

Try deleting the file without iTunes running.
When you next open iTunes it should then be marked as a missing file and you should be able to delete the entry from iTunes.
Hope this works
Regards,
Colin R.

IMac stalled and now is stuck on grey screen

So, I got on my iMac(2008 I believe; it's got the black border, pretty sure it's got a core2duo processor. Running mountain lion) and while the screen was on, nothing was working. The desktop was completely frozen, the mouse wasn't moving, and the keyboard provided no response. So, I reset the system, and it hung up at the grey screen, with the apple logo and spinning wheel.
after a few minutes I reset it again, and had the same issue. I tried loading up a backup, and the one from when I installed ML showed up, but after selecting it, nothing happened.
So I tried safe booting it. No effect, other than it takes longer before the wheel appears.
Next step was resetting the PRAM. First couple of attempts didn't result in a reset, so I moved on to the SMC.
After resetting the SMC, I still saw no improvement to my situation, so I tried resetting the PRAM. This time it did reset, but the computer still hangs up.
Now, I'm not really experienced in all this stuff, but I tried taking a peek in verbose mode... things got interesting here... things seem to load up like normal until it gets to a line along the lines of "USBMSC non-unique identifier ############### device not responding"(Sorry, going by memory here, no computer at home). This line begins repeating to infinity, with the occasional "timed out" message thrown in for good measure.
Now, there's nothing plugged into my computer, I haven't had any issues leadinig up to this, and I haven't recently installed new hardware or software. I tried holding down cmnd-option-o-f, but nothing happened. I had to get back to the office, so maybe I just didn't hit the buttons properly. If I get into openfirmware, is there anything I can do from there?
I don't have regular access to another mac. And, seeing as I work, it's not that easy for me to get in to the genius bar.
Thanks for whatever help you guys can provide!
edit: upon further reading, I see that I may not have tried safe mode properly. the instructions I read said to hold shift from before pressing the power button, now I see some instructions that say to wait until you hear the tone. So I will try that when I get home.... but please, feel free to throw in any theories until then!
edit2: if I ever got a restore disk, I don;t know where it is now.
edit3: 2009 iMac, not 2008. It's 27 inches.

Try booting with Command + R depress to enter the Recovery Partition.
Then start Disk Urtility and repair the disk.
Allan

New MBP 13 inch w/ Retina dude- gray screen on boot up

I bought a new laptop and 2 weeks in I booted up to a frozen gray screen. It would happen anytime after a shutdown or restart. Weirdly, I could get to the desktop after being frozen on the gray screen and boot up after holding option, command and power. But I would have to do this everytime I got to the gray screen. Spoke with apple people on the phone. They had me reset my smc and pram. These strategies did not work. I did alittle bit of research quickly while on the phone and found safe booting it could fix this problem. Tried it and it worked.
I'm just wondering if I should be concerned of a hardware problem? Maybe theres other maverick users who have experienced the same issue. I just want to make sure. It's been fine since though.

These are symptoms of a GPU problem. Your best option is an appointment at an Apple store genius bar for a FREE definitive evaluation.
Ciao.

Desktop inactive or frozen

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