Black squares over dock, menu bar and desktop

Question

Level 1

0 points

Black squares over dock, menu bar and desktop

For some reason my machine at work will randomly replace areas of the desktop, dock or menu bar with a blank black square. Sometimes this is removable by dragging a window over it, force quitting finder or restarting the dock, but in so me cases it does not seem to go until it just randomly disappears by itself.
I've noticed it happen when I am using Adobe InDesign CS3 most of all. It's not an urgent and problematic issue, but more of an annoyance and I was wondering what is wrong and how I can fix or prevent it.
Here is an example of what it was doing in the dock earlier yesterday:

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/8899/picture1el7.png

Until I tolled over the icon, it was a full black square. the application was running at the time, but others around it had the same problem and were not running.

Any assistance would be great.
Cheers!

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.4), Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5, 5GB DDR SDRAM

Posted on Aug 12, 2008 3:25 PM

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Answer 1

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Aug 12, 2008 3:27 PM in response to Wilsomatic

Apparently, you've activated an assistive device in System Preferences->Universal Access associated with seeing.

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Answer 2

Wilsomatic Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 13, 2008 11:14 PM in response to baltwo

I thought it was this too, but even after double checking to make sure all of that stuff was turned off it's still doing it...

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Aug 13, 2008 11:30 PM in response to Wilsomatic

Then, I'm out of ideas.

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Answer 4

Alexandre

Level 3

854 points

Aug 13, 2008 11:39 PM in response to Wilsomatic

To me, this would be indicative of something running SLOW. when a dock icon bounces, the graphics card renders quickly, so all you normally see is a bounce. But if the black appears, something in the system is not fast enough. I have seen it at work on our slow PC's. You open a window, you can drag it, but it'sl slow to open, and behind the original window you get a black (or mirror image of dragged window).
I think, it's graphics myself (can't render fast enough, for some reason. But that's where my wisdom ends. Have you opened activity monitor and checked for any processes that are "suffocating" the machine (e.g. clamxav - antivirus likes to do background scans and can really use loads of processor power!)? Good luck

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Answer 5

Wilsomatic Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 14, 2008 9:57 PM in response to Alexandre

Thanks for that, I think that may be the problem considering this is a fairly older machine and I don't think it would have the greatest of graphics cards in it.

Also I am mostly having InDesign CS3, Photoshop CS3, Illustrator CS3 and Acrobat Pro all open at the same time along with the usual Firefox, Mail, Printers, and FontExplorer. Sometimes Word as well if laying in large amounts of text for a report.

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Answer 6

Alexandre

Level 3

854 points

Aug 15, 2008 10:22 AM in response to Wilsomatic

Hiya again,

just for fun and frollicks, I have opened the lot, Firefox,mail,preview,qt,itunes, acrobat pro, photoshop, indesign, image ready, word+excel. frantically moved mouse thingy from left to right and right to left across dock.

the activity monitor/memory is gone from 3/4 spare (green) to 1/4 green. but no problems with bouncing or genie effect in dock (this in itself required memory!!) By the way, in photoshop CS3 (I am using 2) can you still set the preferences, as by default the memory is set to almost 100% of available RAM, whereas I have always changed the slider to 33%. Never had problems. Just a thought.

Greetings from London 🙂

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Answer 7

Mario Jr

Level 1

18 points

Sep 8, 2008 11:45 PM in response to Alexandre

Just for fun I thought I would chime in.

I have a brand new MBP 2.6GHz running OSX 10.5.4 with 4GB RAM

To date, I have had only hardware issues (return key doesn't work--repaired at Apple Store, Trackpad button is loose--yet to be repaired)

Tonight, my computer had been asleep for a few hours. All apps were quit before closing the clamshell.

When I opened the clamshell, the menu bar was entirely BLACK and the menu words were barely outlined.

So, I don't think memory is the issue. But, who knows, everyone who contributes info will help us discover the ultimate cause.

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