Desktop Problem-Icons Won't Work or Won't Adjust

Have you restarted the computer? If not, try restarting the Finder - hold the option(alt) key then press and hold the Finder icon in the Dock, when the menu pops up select Relaunch.

Failing that, try deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and relaunch it again.

I too have the same problem. A restart will fix it for perhaps a day or so but then it keeps returning. Can't click on any icons or interact with the desktop at all unless through a finder window.

Any ideas on a permanent solution?

I have the same problem - we have a network of 2 x MacBook Pro's and 2x Mac Pro's and 3 of these computers are exibiting this problem - every morning after the screens have been to sleep all night (but not the CPU or the Disks) we find the icons on the desktop are frozen. The quick solution is to hit Apple/Opt/Esc and force quit/relaunch the finder. Everything works fine for the rest of the day. With 3 out of 4 having this problem its real and its repeatable. Time to get on the case Apple!

My wife's 20" intel imac is having the same problem. Disk Utility always comes up with the same CoreServices problem, repairing fixes it for a few days and then it happens again. We just tried deleting the finder.plist file so we will see how long it works.

Not trying to put down how annoying this is... But I think it's going to need a software update to fix permanently.

As the temporary fix of relaunching the Finder takes about 3 seconds, I'll live with that for now 🙂

I've been having this problem as well, restarting only corrects it for about an hour or so. Was not able to find the library com.apple.finder.plist file in my library and then did a universal search using that string and no results. Not sure why other people have that preference file and I don't. This is a frustrating problem that will influence my decision to purchase new Macs in the future. It's a real time waster. In addition, often when I click on a folder, it comes up empty, even though there may be hundreds of files in the folder. It seems it's part of the same problem, inasmuch as the finder can't process data nodes correctly. The only solution is to open the folder, close it, and open it again and then the files inside it appear, albeit slowly.

I have this exact problem.

I found that if I open VIEW (main menu) "Show View Options" and change anything at all - the icons would become responsive again -

HOWEVER - all the icons reorder to the right of screen as though I had set the ARRANGE BY to Snap To Grid or something - even though ARRANGE BY: is set to NONE.

Very strange glitch.

No problem 🙂

Relaunching the finder is also a temporary fix for me as well...

One other note, relaunching the finder did not cure the problem. Desktop icons are still nonfunctional.

Still having this issue. The quickest work around I have found was to change screen resolutions. Thus far it seems to work, but is there a more permanent fix?