Big Sur Dock Icons

Hi everyone,

It is nice for me to see I am not the only one in this. It is hard to describe it correctly indeed. Here is a link to my attempt. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252102792

My record on the issue so far:

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)

First update to Big Sur via preferences->updates

When waking from sleep, active window preview icons on the right side of the dock are not completely shown.

First reinstall from bootable drive and erased hard disk

When waking from sleep, active window preview icons on the right side of the dock are not completely shown.

Booting in safe mode

Graphics are really slow and minimising a window can already cause the system to stop and return to log-in screen.

When waking the previews in the dock remained invisible but with a black* placeholder instead. *this could be dark mode

Second reinstall from bootable drive and erased hard disk 29-11

When waking, profile is loaded similar to start up and panic report shows up.

Panic 1

Action ->Removed bootable SD card

When waking, profile is loaded similar to start up and panic report shows up.

Panic 2

Following the info from https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251285083

-> Switched off Power Nap in Energy saver

->PRAM and SMC reset

->disable recent applications in dock *personal preference

30-11 23”53 470,47GB Available

after a night on sleep

1-12 08’56 468,86Gb Avbl.

When waking from sleep, active window preview icons on the right side of the dock are not completely shown.

-> Enable power nap

Contact with apple support

Advise: Let us know what happens in a guest profile and in safe mode and report back to us.

No errors during sleep mode for 4,5h 468,7 Gb

2-12 09’00 468,7 sleep mode overnight

No panic, so this seems resolved. Icons still invisible.

My future actions:

1. Let it sleep in guest profile tonight
2. Let it sleep in safe mode tomorrow night

I also have this issue - MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015). I have successfully re-installed Big Sur and that fixed the problem for a short time - but now it's the same issue again (although a bit worse actually since almost all icons have vanished).

I do get it very often on the minimised icons BUT as you can see many of the app icons have also vanished

Boot into Safe Mode by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists.  Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

Wow, finally I realize I'm not alone with this problem. It has been going on for months, ever since I installed Big Sur (non beta.) The only icon that shrinks for me is the finder though. Functionally, it makes it harder to see what finder folders I have minimized, but if you mouse hover, you can still see the folder name. But visually, it is just jarring.

I wasn't able to find any preference that changed this. If I open the folder and minimize it again, it goes back to normal size. So I find myself doing that a fair amount.

These usually start to minimize if left in the dock untouched for a day.

I'm using an M-1 Mac Air w/ the same problem. Weirdly, when I open a "shrunk" icon and then re-minimize the file/app, the icon returns to its normal size. A minor annoyance, but it would be nice to have this resolved.

I have this problem as well.

I can fix an instance of it by going to System Preferences and selecting "Dock&Menu Bar".

Then selecting a different screen position for the dock, and then putting it back to Bottom.

Hey there! Strange one!

Considering the symptoms, I’m first wondering what you see in System Preferences > Users and Groups > Login items.

Curious to see if Firefox or if there’s a common startup item in there with everyone, I’d highlight each and hit the “-“ sign, restart and test.

Myself, if that didn’t work, I’d probably open Terminal:

Finder > Go (On the top menu) > Utilities > Terminal.

In Terminal, type:

sudo killall dock

Press Return, enter admin password if prompted and hit Return again, any change?

If not, (And this is just a suspicion if those steps didn’t work out):

Select the Apple logo (On the top left) > Force Quit > Finder > Relaunch.

Any change?

Unfortunately at this moment I have it "fixed" after toggling the Dock position.

I will have to wait until the problem reappears. I have seen it mainly as cosmetic; but it does happen a lot. I thought perhaps Apple software folks wanted it this way.

The pattern that I am noticing is that the "created" Dock icon has a preview of what was showing in the app when it was minimized. It is this preview which is not showing. Only the microscopic icon of the app that typically overs over the bottom corner of the little preview is then showing.

I also noticed today: I used Terminal to launch Man (help) for the ls command and this did then not have an icon (I guess Man is a service rather than an app) and there the preview was also not showing. So with no app icon, the Dock icon spot was completely empty.

Hey again! Sounds good. So you did run the killall dock in Terminal? Man should just be a reference page.

Let me know how those other steps go I mentioned earlier, I can’t replicate the issue but those steps would be the first ones I’d take given the situation.

Likewise, there is a rather new setting in Dock & Menu Bar Preferences to, “Show recently opened apps in Dock”, just wondering if that’s enabled in all these cases, and if disabled, if that makes a difference.

I can see in your screen shot, it appears to happen to the “Recently open” apps, however in another posted one seems otherwise.

I’d try those previous steps I mentioned, curious to see the results, but if it’s working now that’s awesome! (Hope it lasts, these things can be strange though at times).

With MACBook Air, pruchased Nov 2020, I only recently came to have this issue with 11.1. When 11.2 was installed it went away for a few days and then came back. 11.2.1 also seemed to fix for a few days. Only way I have found to fix it is complete restart. Not only does the app icon go blank (except, yes, for a mini icon) but documents in word, Adobe, also cannot be seen....only their mini-icons.

When it seemed to go away with 11.2.1 I thought maybe they have notice and fixed it.

Currently running Big Sur / MacBook Pro closed with two external monitors and I don't see this happening when I wake the computer up from sleep.

I'm going to run it for a few more days, but it looks like it has something to do with the act of opening the lid and wake the computer. (at least in my case).

But it's been only a couple of days, so let's see :fingerscrossed:

With my Apple Care still valid, I rang them this am. They had not heard of this issue. They ran through changes on 'dock and menu bar', as have been discussed in this and the other thread. We then tried 'safe' mode restart...which worked ok - though I did mention that usually all is OK for a first day or so, and that after that the problem returned. Throughout I did agree they could 'see' my screen, so they could have a visual of the issue and the lack of success of the attempted fixes above. Finally, they advised software reinstall and to get back to them if the problem reappeared after that. So, I have done this and will keep this thread informed.

Thanks again!

I am having the same problem on both laptops, MacBook Air (March 2020) and on MacBook Air M1(Feb 2021), using Big Sur 11.2.3.

Nothing mentioned in this thread seems to be fixing/working/helping. Almost as though the problem seems to be getting worse with each update.

Also notice that there is a one second lag between when I hit the minimize button and when it actually minimizes the window. This one second lag also occurs when trying to move icons around on my desktop, even if I am not running any other programs or have anything else open or minimized.

@apple - Fix this please before it gets out of hand!