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]

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This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
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Dock icons disappear when quitting apps

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