Why does the Finder desktop disappear?

Hi odysseus,

Finder quitting and having to relaunch is a known issue.

What do you mean "stopped displaying the Desktop. What is on your display when this happens, other than your Dock. i.e. what is the background?

There are a couple of fixes we can try, when you reply.



-mj

OK, let's try the quick and easy first...

go to Users/yourname/Library/Preferences and trash these two files:
com.apple.finder.plist
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

Then, restart.
(You will have to reset a few finder prefs the way you like them.)

If that doesn't help There are some simple troubleshooting steps you can take.

Be sure you drive is not overly full. Rule of thumb would be over 85%.

Create a new User go to System Preferences >> Accounts >> "+" (make it an admin acct) and test the apps in this new account, if they work the problem is isolated to your User and not systemwide.

If the issue is limited to your user account try starting up Safe Mode (It will take more time to startup in Safe Mode because it runs a directory check.)

If your apps functions correctly that way, go to System Preferences >> Accounts >> Login Items, and remove them. Boot normally and test. If not go to ~(yourHome)/Library /Contextual Menu Items and move whatever is there to the desktop. Then do the same with /Library/ Contextual Menu Items. Lastly, try moving ~(yourHome)/Library/ Fonts to your desktop and restarting.

Log out/in or restart, if that sorts it start putting items back one at a time until you find the culprit.

If the issue is systemwide then, you may be able to repair this with the The 10.6.2 Combo Update This is a fuller install, as opposed to an incremental "delta" update so it should overwrite any files that are damaged or missing. It does not matter if you have applied it before.

Remember to Verify Disk before update and repair permissions after update from /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.

It also may be the DS_Store.
Let's try removing it. Launch Terminal.

Enter:

cd /

Press Return.

Next enter:

rm /.DS_Store

Press return

This should set your Finder back to default.

If all that fails at least you can run this from Francine, instead of Activity Monitor.
http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html
Launch ScriptEditor and copy and paste this into the script window:
tell application "System Events"
set visible of disk "NameofDisk" to true
end tell
tell application "Finder" to quit
delay 1
tell application "Finder" to launch
Replace NameofDisk with the actual name of your disk, hit the Compile icon to make sure the script didn't acquire any errors, and then hit run. This should set the visible attribute back to visible and quit and relaunch the Finder, thus making the change available.
The same thing can happen to other drives, both internal and external. You can use the same Applescript to fix those as well, just put in the name of the drive.



-mj

Message was edited by: macjack

odysseus wrote:
Thanks for all the advice, but the steps you advocate seem unwarranted. As I wrote above, I performed a clean install precisely in order avoid taking the sorts of steps you recommend. Those plist files are in xml -- there's no hidden corruption that could be lurking in them.

Of course, a file could never become corrupted. Completely impossible.

Furthermore, if they were at fault, the Finder would be malfunctioning continuously, not intermittently.

Except, the Finder does not continuously write to those files. It only writes when it needs to.

Since this is an intermittent problem, I'm led to conclude that it's some sort of bug or the result of an interaction with some third-party software. I've tried to keep that to a minimum, but I do use Dropbox. I was just wondering whether else had seen the same phenomenon.

Well then turn off Dropbox and see what happens.

Well, based on your response to macjack, I didn't think you really wanted help, so it wasn't meant to be helpful. Macjack offered some good initial troubleshooting advice which you chose to dismiss outright.

Can you open your Desktop folder when this happens?
How much stuff do you have on your desktop? The desktop itself has a different display mechanism than a regular folder.

odysseus wrote:
It seems to me that the first question is, "are other people seeing this problem?," because if they are, then it's a bug.

Not necessarily. As I said, Finder can be problematic. There may be a bug in Finder... but that doesn't explain why it "bugs" some users but not others. Therefore, my best guess is that it is a certain set of factors that must be present.

And yes as Barney mentions, files can and do get corrupted and you can't check every file on your drive for corruption. The combo update should overwrite any corrupted system files but for all the others, you're on your own.



-mj

odysseus wrote:
It seems to me that the first question is, "are other people seeing this problem?," because if they are, then it's a bug.

If they were, this forum would be filled with the same question. If it was a known bug, macjack or I would have replied that it is. I've never heard of it, but it sounds like something is preventing the desktop from being redrawn. These things are most likely configuration file issues or permission issues. Just because you have access to the file doesn't mean the screen redraw agent (whatever it is) has permission.

If it happens in another user, then it is a system level file. If it doesn't happen in other user, then it is a user level file. We are just users without access to any Apple tech data, so we can only guess at what might be causing the problem. Based on his experience, macjack threw out a list of files that could be the problem based on your symptoms.

I've run into this problem, too, odysseus—intermittently, as you describe. It also happens consistently when I pull cables and switch from external monitor, keyboard, etc. to Macbook Pro's internal gear. I haven't looked at the issue of display resolution you mention, but a clean install did not resolve the issue for me either. Furthermore, every so often—rarely, but surely—I open a Finder window to discover all text gone (only shows folder icons in column view), or weird video artifacts in the header and footer areas of the window or a "smudging" of text in the headers or sidebar. Relaunching Finder clears all of this up for the time being. Haven't ruled out the video card (which I believe is integrated into the mother board), but the problems are so widely intermittent, I'm holding off to see if upgrading from 10.6 to 10.6.2 Combo fixes them. As a side note, I second your comment to Barney-15E about sarcasm. Eventually, I think people grow up and realize that it's never helpful or warranted. The presumption in forums such as these that one can address others with such egregious disrespect is always baffling to me. Good luck with resolving the issue. I've posted this to answer your original question, way back somewhere in this thread: Yes, someone else is experiencing this.

Thank you again macjack. I worked through your advice and I have resolved a very similar issue.

In my case (I am almost certain) the problem seems to have been some fonts I had added to Fontbook. Nevertheless sometimes it is good for people like me to 'suck eggs' and methodically go through all of the advised steps. Yours were sensible and I actually know a little more about the layers of my system as a result of your stepped advice.

Moving my user fonts to the desktop and restarting has solved my problem and another recurring and more obvious font bug that was not so critical but annoying.

I had thought Fontbook infallible in detecting the issue so had just dismissed it as a possibility.

Thanks for your superior detection, dedication and patience.