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.

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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

Whilst working on iMovie my screen has frozen. Cannot use any menus or dock icons. Tried turning off but asks am I sure. If I press shut down button it doesn't respond. Any ideas?

Cannot use any menus or dock icons. Tried turning off computer but message appeared asking 'am I sure'. If I press shut down button it doesn't respond. Any ideas? I was dropping multiple clips into my movie/project when it happened. It has been frozen for over an hour now. I can't hear the driving doing any work.

Thanks a lot. I had previously held the power button down and up popped the 'are you sure' message whhich provided a shut down button to press but it didn't work. Thanks for you help. I'll have a look in iMovie now to see if I've got any corrupted files. Thanks a lot
Kind regards
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Dock icons disappear when quitting apps

This is a brand new 1.9 GHz 17" iMac G5 with iSight built-in.
Software is up to date with OS 10.4.3 and all patches.
While working with the owner today, I quit Safari, and watched the Safari icon disappear from the dock. No smoke no nothing--when the App closed, the icon vanished.
Then I tried to demo iChat--and had the same experience.
It isn't a problem to drag the apps back to the Dock, but it shouldn't have to be done.
I finally wound up launching/quitting all Apps - all finally behaved properly, at least today.
Ideas on what's happening and how to prevent?

Ohairy, I'd guess that it was a corrupt plist. ~/library/preferences/com.apple.dock.plist.
Create a new account, name it "test" and see how the Dock icons work in that User acct? (That will tell if your problem is systemwide or limited to your User acct.)
If the Dock icons function normally in the new user, I'd delete the plist and rebuild the Dock icons.
If other "odd" issues begin to show up it may indicate hardware problems with added ram, cpu or hard disk. Run Disk Repair & AHT (Apple Hardware Test).
-mj
[email protected]

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 Icons flicker

Hi
My 27' iMac with AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1024 MB has recently started to flicker the dock icons when I mouse over, the dock then momentarily freezes (1-2 seconds) before freeing up. Not a fatal problem butannoying. I'm not aware of any changes to the OS or any new programmes installed. I think its probably a pfile corruption problem, but have no further idea
Any suggestions
Cheers

First test by creating a fresh user, or logging into your Guest account. If Dock works as expected in that account that the issue is limited to your user. Log back into the problem account...
Go to your Finder "Go" menu hold the option key and choose Library. Then go to Preferences folder and delete these files:
com.apple.dock.plist
com.apple.dock.db
com.apple.dock.extra.plist
Then, restart, or log out and in again.
(You will have to reset your Dock the way you like it.)

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Periodically, the grey background in all of the Dock icons' name labels all but fade, making the names difficult to read. The problem goes away if I reboot, but eventually returns.
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Yep. I think you've got a corrupted system. I'd recommend a reinstall. You might try the following:
How to Perform an Archive and Install
An Archive and Install will NOT erase your hard drive, but you must have sufficient free space for a second OS X installation which could be from 3-9 GBs depending upon the version of OS X and selected installation options. The free space requirement is over and above normal free space requirements which should be at least 6-10 GBs. Read all the linked references carefully before proceeding.
1. Be sure to use Disk Utility first to repair the disk before performing the Archive and Install.
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer.
2. Do not proceed with an Archive and Install if DU reports errors it cannot fix. In that case use Disk Warrior and/or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive. If neither can repair the drive, then you will have to erase the drive and reinstall from scratch.
3. Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When you reach the screen to select a destination drive click once on the destination drive then click on the Option button. Select the Archive and Install option. You have an option to preserve users and network preferences. Only select this option if you are sure you have no corrupted files in your user accounts. Otherwise leave this option unchecked. Click on the OK button and continue with the OS X Installation.
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Hi--looked around and could not find this. I would like to know what font controls the display of the date in the dock icon. It's gone funny recently. I think probably I loaded a font that conflicts with Apple's preferred font for the application and/or replaced it.
I know it's a small thing but the icon displaying with the date all wrong offends my tender typographic sensibilities!
Thanks for any help.

riz,
It appears to me as if there may be cache corruption problems with your system.
Start up in "Safe Mode," then restart normally and repeat the "Resolve Duplicates" feature of Font Book.
If that is unsuccessful, download and install OnyX, which has a Font Cache cleaning option in the OnyX>Cleaning>Fonts>System and Users section. Other choices are also available in that section which may or may not apply to your system.
Good Luck.

ICal dock icon & iPhoto event's name issue

Recently I noticed that the date number in the iCal dock icon and the event's title in iPhoto were a few pixel shifted up. How can I solve this?
Here are two screenshots:

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Yes, I see on the iCal icon the 4 is shifted up into the red. It's odd. Try this...
It may be LaunchServices. These are only cache files but can get corrupted.
Launch /Utilities/Terminal and *copy & paste* this at the command line to rebuild LaunchServices:
Code:
<pre class="alt2" style="margin:0px; padding:3px; border:1px inset; width:640px; height:34px; overflow:auto">/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchSe rvices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user</pre>
Then press return. Wait until terminal returns to the command line. Quit Terminal. After that, log out and back in or restart. Let us know
-mj

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My Dock icons looks garbled after upgrading to OS X Maverick.Not all but most of them look like scattered dots instead of the icons, tried restarting multiple times still no use.
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The dock preferences may be corrupted ...
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.finder.plist file to the Trash
Restart your Mac.

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I also dragged the dock two utility files (com.apple.dock.db, com.apple.dock.plist) to the desktop and relogged, resetting the dock. This did not work.
I reinstalled Firefox, but that did not work.
The Firefox dock icon stays put on the other iMac user and on my MBP.
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I keep the App Store icon in my dock but when there is an application update I never see the red badge on the edge of the icon to tell me if I have any updates. I did have this before I upgraded to Lion. If I go the App Store itself, the number does display on the "Updates" icon at the top of the page. What good is even having the dock icon if it doesn't work. That would be like not having Mail display the number of new message in my inbox.

Larry...
MIght be corrupted Dock preferences.
Go to ~/Library/Preferences
~ (Tilde) character represents the Home folder.
Move the com.apple.dock.plist file from the Preferences folder to the Trash.
Restart your Mac. See if that helped.
FYI.. when you post for help, please tell us which Mac OS X you have installed. Thanks!

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My iCal dock icon has stopped updating the current date.
I have dragged the icon off the dock and re-dragged a fresh version from the iCal application but this only works for the current day where again it will not update the next day.
I have had Leopard for almost 2 months and this problem has only just started in the last week.

Yes, I have the same problem as well. And it started happening after the recent software update. I have also tried the suggested solution - dragging out the icon and restarting, but it still doesn't work.
When I upgraded to Leopard I was happy that everyday the iCal icon updated the date automatically, but I think the Tiger way of launching iCal at login and hiding its window would have to be the solution in Leopard as well

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I am looking for a way to hide an application which is running without a dock icon.
I have tried using spirited away but as soon as I hide the dock icon(space suit is the app in question)spirited away can no longer find the application.
The reason for my enquiry is that space suit creates a window in expose called "SpaceSuitWin" which is taking up unnecessary space and at times making other window preview so small that they are indecipherable.
Any feedback would be awesome, not sure if this is even possible but any work arounds or alternatives are welcome. Also a fairly novice user so any tech. solutions may need to be well explained.
Thanks

Find the info.plist file in the Application, and edit it.
Put this:
<key>LSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>
just above the penultimate </dict> entry.
You might have to move the application to update the registry. Then move it back. Relaunch.
You need to be aware that this will also eliminate the menu bar, which might be problematic depending upon the application.

Mouse over dock icon no longer indicates "application not responding"

A very convenient feature seems to be missing from Snow Leopard. In prior versions, if an application was not responding, holding the cursor over its dock icon would display "[Application] Not Responding" and also an option to Force Quit. This status message does not appear in Snow Leopard.
Are we to assume that if we click and hold on a dock icon and "Force Quit" is presented as an option, that the application has stopped responding?
Suggestions?

drdocument wrote:
Thanks!
So if I click and hold a dock icon and "Force Quit" is shown instead of "Quit" would that indicate that the particular application is in the midst of some process and simply unable to respond?
Should I simply allow more time for the app to finish whatever it's doing?
it could be either. sometimes an application is busy and is showing as not responding but will come out of it after a while. but sometimes it's truly hanging and then you have to force quit it to get rid of it. there is no way to tell just by looking at the dock. give it a bit of time and if it's still not responding then force quit. but if it's happening all the time then you may have problems with your system.
In particular, here, I've launched DiskWarrior 4.2 on a Mini (via Screen Sharing from my Mac Pro) in an attempt to rebuild directory on a My Book 1TB external drive connected by FireWire, which Disk Utility indicates needs repair but DU cannot repair. Ideas?
so what does disk warrior say when you try to rebuild the directory? and you should also verify the internal drive on the mini too.

Dock Icons Corrupted

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