Finder icons missing, reappear on click

I've been having a strange problem with my Powermac G4 lately. Earlier the finder crashed and wouldn't relaunch on a reboot. The computer would restart fine, but there would be no icons on the desktop, I could not open a finder window from the dock or spotlight, and clicking on the menubar while the finder was 'active' would cause the mouse to freeze. I deleted the com.apple.finder.plist file in my /user/library/preferences folder, and now I am able to open a new finder window from the dock, and the menubar works while the finder is 'active.' However, all the icons from the desktop are missing, that is until I clicked on the blank desktop and an icon appeared. It's like all the icons are there on the desktop (and I can see them in the Desktop folder in the finder) but are hidden until I click on them. I have tried repairing permissions but it did not do anything. I'm rather confused at this point, and have no idea what to google to start finding a solution.

Hi
Yes it is a bit much expecting a response in the 10 minute interval between your posts.
However, you have learned a valuable lesson in file management and organisational storage. In future create a suitable filing place/ directory before dumping huge amounts of data/ files, especially on the Desktop.
cheers
dave

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Finder icon missing in dock

Hello,
The icon of finder is missing in the dock, there is still a white dot below what means that finder is still running and I can open it but it annoys me that the icon just dissappeared. I tried a lot of things like deleting the plists from the dock and finder, or open terminal and killall Dock, doesn't work either. I tried to reset my icon with candybar, searched the Core Services map and also I can't find the solution here. Logout and login won't work. I replaced the Finder icon but also that is no option. I want to find a solution without reseting or installing my OS X Lion, because I think there must be something that should work. So if there is anyone who had the problem too or knows a solution that works for real, please tell me!
Already thanks!
Kind regards,
Vincent

Was it candybar that deleted your finder icon?
if so you just drag the custom icon (which is blank for the size you are using it in probably, reference picture) will POOF and your system icon should be restored. THEN you killAll Dock, which candybar does for you.
which version of CandyBar do you have? the latest is the only one that will work effectivly on Lion.
in icon composer, and when you preview an icon, you'll see that it is really a container with multiple images. A reason why your icons are coming up blank might be that the spaces for the the other icon sizes are empty. if you go into Icon Composer, you can drag in the other sizes and save as an ico. Then you'll have a working icon.

Help-Finder icons missing!!! Problem Solved

Please help!
My finder menu icons are missing! Also, my finder preferences are missing. When I try to open the preferences for finder, nothing happens. My icons are also missing. There is no view or forward, back, or view icons. I have tried to remove them and bring them back, but they never show. if i select the area where the icon is supposed to be, it will go back or forward, but the action button( the space where it used to be) doesn't work. when i log into a different user on the same computer, evrything is normal, so it is an issue on my login.
Any ideas?
Probelm Solved-I found another thread and did the recommended deletion of the finder preference files, restarted the computer, and everything returned to normal!!!
Thanks

You're saying that in the /Home/Library/Caches/ folder there is no folder name 'com.apple.finder?' This is a folder, not a file.
You can also move the /Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist file to your Desktop and relaunch the Finder
Your files are fine. You cannot simply delete a user account nor replace it with another. So for now do not even try.
You might also do this:
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, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) 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 click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

Finder icons missing

Hi,
Since a few days the icons in my finder has disappeared. See: http://cloud.brivelt.com/3l110W462z0t2E1N1N1t
Does anyone know how I can fix this? I'm running OSX 10.7
-Brian

Hi,
I had the same problem as you did after installing the 10.7.4 update through software update. I tried disk permissions repair, disk repair, deleting plist files but nothing worked.
I realised the problem was in the update (didnt install properly or currupted), so I reinstalled 10.7.4 using the client combo update here, http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1524 and IT WORKED!
All my icons are back and it saved me the trouble of reinstalling the lion which I was about to do.
Just download the update and install, the installation may take a while but just leave it to do its thing. Restart and all your icons should magically reappear.
Hope this helps unless you reinstalled lion already...
Alexander.

I downloaded the 30 day free trial of Photoshop on 9/11, but have not been able to open it, or even find it on my computer. I do have the Adobe Create Cloud icon, and when I click it it list PS as downloaded and lets me access tutorials, but that is all.

I downloaded the 30 day free trial of Photoshop on 9/11, but have not been able to open it, or even find it on my computer. I do have the Adobe Create Cloud icon, and when I click it it list PS as downloaded and lets me access tutorials, but that is all.
Please let me know how to open and use PS.
Homer Guy

Hi Homerguy,
If you are using Mac, please open the finder window click on go and choose applications and try to launch Photoshop from there.
If windows, please navigate to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 and double click on the Photoshop.exe file.
Thanks

I'm using a fresh install on 10.10. why when i click the finder icon in the dock a finder window does not open?

i'm using a fresh install on 10.10. why when i click the finder icon in the dock a finder window does not open?

ok, i forced quit the finder, and now when i click on the finder it opens a visible window... where did this bug come from?

Clicking Finder Icon in Dock Doesn't Open New Finder Window

On my MBP with Lion, the left clicking the finder icon does nothing. It doesn't even change the menu bar focus to finder. I can right click and then open a new window. This works like I am accustomed to on my MBP with Lion.
Any ideas to fix this?
Thanks,
Geraldo.

Open Terminal, type
killall Dock
and press 'return' on the keyboard.
That will solve the issue temporarily. But to fix it permanently you need to go find the 3rd party software that is causing the conflict, probably in your Login Items if a restart didn't fix it. Look here:
 > System Preferences... > Users & Groups | Login Items
Likely suspects are things like
Total Spaces
Path Finder
BetterTouchTool
BetterFinder
but the list of possibilities is endless. Easiset thing to do is just remove EVERYTHING from your login items.

Clicking on Finder icon in Dock no longer opens new Finder window

This behavior just started about a week ago. When I click on the Finder icon in the Dock, nothing happens, even though a new Finder window is supposed to appear. I have gone through the usual fix-its (deleting the Finder plist file, relaunching the Finder via Force Quit), but nothing has worked. Any suggestions as to the cause and possible remedies?

Here is what showed up in the Console:
3/10/15 7:30:27.265 AM sandboxd[145]: ([757]) mdworker32(757) deny file-write-data /Users/donprice/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/.scmsvr32 (pre-plugin fstype:hfs fsflag:480D000 flags:240000005E diag:0 isXCode:0 uti:com.microsoft.outlook15.message plugin:/Microsoft Outlook.app/Contents/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Outlook Spotlight Importer.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t 7421291)
3/10/15 7:30:27.272 AM sandboxd[145]: ([757]) mdworker32(757) deny file-write-data /Users/donprice/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/.scmsvr32-wal (pre-plugin fstype:hfs fsflag:480D000 flags:240000005E diag:0 isXCode:0 uti:com.microsoft.outlook15.message plugin:/Microsoft Outlook.app/Contents/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Outlook Spotlight Importer.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t 7421291)
3/10/15 7:30:48.673 AM netbiosd[220]: name servers down?
3/10/15 7:30:54.000 AM kernel[0]: Over-release of kernel-internal importance assertions for pid 55 (launchservicesd), dropping 1 assertion(s) but task only has 0 remaining (0 external).
And booting into Safe Mode, I get the same behavior.

Finder is not working properly mac osx 10.7.4 it no longer launches a new window when I click the finder icon - I have to right click and open a new window

Hi
Just recently Finder has stopped behaving as it normally would. Clicking the icon doesn't seem to launch the finder window. I have to right click the finder icon and then click New Finder Window. Sometimes there is no response for sometime and then finally it does open a window. If I click finder when a wondow is open it does not shift focus to finder anymore. I am sure this did not use to be the case?
PS. not sure if this is how to put things on the forum as haven't used them before!
Julian

Click on the spotlight icon in the top right of your screen (looks like a magnifying glass), type
Terminal
and press 'return'.
In the window that opens up, paste or type this exactly into the window
killall Finder; killall Dock
(that's case sensitive) and press 'return'.
You'll notice the Dock disappear for a second or two then return, as do any open Finder windows.
Test using Finder as normal. Same problem?

HELP!! FINDER ICON KEEPS JUMPING. MESSAGE SAYS 'RESTORE WINDOWS'. CAN'T CLICK IT. DESKTOP IS BLANK. I'M IN MY FINALS WEEK!!

My Finder icon keeps jumping. I can't open a Finder window. A message keeps popping up at the same time asking me whether or not I want to restore my Windows. I can't click on it because it keeps, well, disappearing. I can't even force quit the application. I've turned my laptop on and off and the whole thing starts again. The files on my desktop have disappeared. I've visited all other forums on the subject and nothing works. HELP!! I'm in my finals week and I cannot afford to waste time on this.

Never mind.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3193215?start=30&tstart=0

Click on Finder icon, bring up FINDER

Hello,
My fiancee just got her first Mac. But for some reason, when she clicks on the "finder" icon in the dock, it does not bring up the finder window. It just takes her to the desktop. Any idea how to change this setting?
Thanks!
-Dustin

Hmm. What exactly do you mean by "takes her to the desktop"? Does it hide all other programs? Does it open a Finder window displaying the items on the Desktop?
Cheers,
Daniel
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Finder icon no longer activates Finder,when clicked.

Finder icon no longer activates Finder,when clicked.
Right clicking the icon in the dock provides menu and from there I can choose 'New Finder Window'.

HI thanks for being interested....
It' WAS odd , now resolved. How it was resolved is more curious. It had been going on several days .. Quite tedious .
Yes es the icon ( Finder ) in the dock , the blue and white square faced one just to be clear. Clicking on it had no effect at all.
I Two finger tapped on the icon and had the pop up menu appear above it, from there I could select new finder window .
Also 'Command N' could activate finder no problem.
Another odd thing ... I had to reply to this thread on my iPad - via Safari as the Mac Mini Safari page for support thread would NOT respond to 'reply'.. For your question . Even trying logining out then in again.

Tiger relaunches Finder whenever Finder icon is clicked in the Dock

My wife's MacBook, a 13" late '06 running Tiger, began having a problem with Finder this evening. Whenever the Finder icon in the Dock is clicked, all Finder windows close, the desktop flashes black, and Finder relaunches.
If a folder alias is clicked from the Desktop, it opens without a problem-- it's only the Finder Dock icon. All other programs open normally.

When using the Finder's own Preference setting dialog box, what does it
show the "New Finder window opens" as being set to open? If it was
set at some point, and "Other" was used to choose something beyond
the default expectations, the Finder icon in Dock could launch or re-
launch something else with results unexpectedly quite different.
The usual default is something like "Home" (a user folder) or maybe the
"Computer" which may contain a window with the Hard Disk drive and
a Network orb; or the "Macintosh HD" (so - IF - the HDD icon is made to
be invisible to the Desktop, the Finder can be used to access it instead.)
So, for some reason or through some accident, glitch, or evidence of
some corruption elsewhere in the system, you have Finder in Dock
re-launching the Dock...(?)
If there is a different purpose chosen in the Finder's menu bar where
the preferences can be changed in a "General" control box, you can
see if you can re-assign the defaults as mentioned above, again.
If other user accounts don't act up, (and they should not, since it
is not a universal change if these are set different in one account)
when they are booted into, and the Finder icon in the Dock is clicked
and you can't get that to revert to the default option(s) that should be
in the Finder Preference selection; then the issue may be in Dock
preference files themselves. Those would be (probably) in the user
Library file and among .plist named items.
Since I am not sure of the location of those specific items without an
extensive folder-opening search in my OSX system to find which of
the few relevant locations this applicable .plist is actually to be found,
the two probable items to find and move to desktop, then restart, may
be the Dock preference .plist and the Finder preference .plist items.
A restart should bring those two items back as default-set replacement
.plists, so, if you were unable to simply re-set the Finder preference
panel to choose Home, Macintosh HD, or maybe Computer in there,
you may have to find these two .plist files, and move them from the
correct location, where the system should replace them on restart.
Routine and usual system maintenance and light repairs to disk and
disk permissions can be done by running Disk Utility from the booted
Installer disc's menu bar options; short of running the actual Install
mode, where the menu bar has a drop down menu (such as Finder
but says Installer) when the computer is running from the OSX install
disc's version of startup software, where this access is possible. To
do that, you put the disc#1 of the current OS X version installer in to
the optical drive and hold the C key down on startup. The first window
that will appear should be the choose language window, the second
one should be where you have a menu bar in Installer to find & launch
Disk Utility from. After running D.U.'s first aid on the Macintosh HD to
'repair disk', you can run the' repair disk utilities' and maybe click on
the name of the brand of hard disk drive (same location where name
Macintosh HD, different item) and then run Verify on the hard drive.
When done, quit Disk Utility, and choose Startup Manager item from
the Installer's drop down menu bar option list; and choose the Mac's
hard drive system and restart the computer. A lighter way to repair the
disk permissions you probably should've been using regularly, is in
the Utilities folder in the computer's system on hard disk drive. Simply
choose GO in the Finder's menu bar, select Utilities Folder, and then
when that folder opens on the desktop, find & double-click Disk Utility.
(In my system, I highlighted Disk Utility's name by clicking it once
so I could change it; in mine, the only change made was to add one
space in front of the name Disk Utility, and now it is the first item in
the Utilities folder, so it is easier to find & launch regularly. This re-
orders the alphabetical order of named items in that folder and puts
the one with a single space in front of the natural order. If you want
to bring another item up to appear out of order, you can add one or
more spaces, to re-order items in a folder to be first ahead of A,B,C.)
You probably didn't need to know any or all of this; but resetting the
Finder preference to see if you can get the Dock's Finder icon to
launch the original few defaults instead of itself; or remove the plists
for Dock and Finder, and restart to see if the proper settings occur.
Not sure, but if you remove the Dock .plist, if that would remove the
chosen symbiotic links (drag-to-dock app icons you moved there)
or if those would be in another location. Removing the Finder .plist
from the appropriate file in the system should be safe enough and
restart. And find out if someone had changed that Finder preference.
Performing routine and preventative maintenance can be easy; but it
may not correct some odd changed preference in an obscure location.
And won't fix some corruption caused by data being overwritten due to
a hard disk drive being too full for the system to function normally.
The problem will be resolved when you fix it...!
Good luck & happy computing!
{ started writing early + wrote too much = finished late. }

When clicking on the Finder icon in the dock the Main Menu grays out ... what's wrong ... how do I fix?

Product: iMac, OS X 10.9.5 (13F34)
Processor: 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 32 GB 160 MHz DDr3
Storage: 3.12 TB Fusion Drive
PROBLEMS:
1. When clicking on the Finder icon in the dock, the main menu grays out and the window with documents, applications etc., does not pop up.
2. iMac is not showing up in iCloud.com and, not syncing with my MacBook Pro, iPad Mini and iPhone.
This situation seemed to appear after doing updates on my iMac.
TROUBLESHOOTING I'VE TRIED:
1. rebooted,
2. repaired permissions,
3. booted in safe-mode and let the basic tests run then rebooted to normal mode. Afterwards, the problem seemed to be corrected, however, it re-appeared shortly thereafter and still exists.

Go to the Finder's General preference pane and reset the New Finder windows show: option. Try changing it to some other folder, try it and then back again.
If that doesn't jump start it try moving the com.apple.finder.plist file from your Home/Library/Preferences folder to the Desktop, reboot and then reset the Finder preferences.
For Mavericks and Yosemite go to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring the this window:

HT5037 I clicked the finder icon and pulled down the Finder menu and never found a "go" menu. Where is the ******* go menu?

I am trying to install the update on iPhoto on my newMac laptop. It tell me to go to finder and hit the "go meu" in the finder. pulled down the go menu at the top of the screen and the finder icon on the bottom of ther screen. Where is this "go menu? Apple used to be inutitive - it is getting as hard to operate as Microsfot was in the beginning of the 200s.

Hisdoc,
This is a user to user forum. So, you cannot expect an instant answer - it is not a live chat.
Not sure why you can't find the "Go" option. It is in the top menu:
GB

Finder icons missing, reappear on click

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