builtinbc wrote:
First, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SAVED ALL OPEN DOCUMENTS AND QUIT ALL OPEN APPLICATIONS, as quitting WindowServer will immediately force log out, and otherwise you will lose data!!!
Launch Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder.
Type "WindowServer" in the "String Matching" field of Activity Monitor, making sure that "All Processes" or "Other User Processes" is selected in the popup next to it).
Click "WindowServer" (which should now be the only process displayed) to select it.
Click the red "Quit Process" button and choose "Force Quit".
Hope this works for you also!
It DID! Not sure how you discovered that WindowServer of all things was related to what appeared to be a USB or memory error, but this appears to have cleared it up for me. I've been on 10.6.2 for some time, but recently re-started using a USB Microsoft mouse. I don't use VMware, but I do use VirtualBox. No idea if they were part of the mix, but this simple kill of WindowServer has fixed the issue for me (for now..?).
I can't believe how huge this thread is and the wild speculations some of you who have no idea would throw out there. Some of those earlier fixes were horrible, dangerous ideas that would take a lot of work to correct. I wonder if this WindowServer restart would have solved everyones problems, though, or if the fix is different for everyone.
I'm just glad that I don't (hopefully) have to get my memory or logic board or trackpad replaced just to fix this. Whew!