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Changing accent colour freezes dock and app switcher

Dear all,

this has existed since updgrading my 15" MBP (2016) to Big Sur and it has persisted through a macOS reinstall, Safe Mode, SMC and PVRAM reset through Apple Support phone assistance.


This is what is happening: go to System Preferences > General > change the accent colour.

The pointer will start misbehaving (that is disappearing sometimes), Cmd-Tab shortcut will stop responding, the Dock (which I keep on auto-hide mode) will not react to the pointer going to the bottom part of the screen. This happens both with the internal trackpad and the Magic Trackpad 2.

Reproducible after a Mac reboot.


The only solution I have found to this is to go to Terminal and type "killall Dock". This will give me back full control. Still, I do not think this is a good behaviour from macOS.

It does not seem to be caused by a specific app.


Thank you

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.3

Posted on May 23, 2021 11:01 AM

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Posted on May 23, 2021 12:20 PM

You don’t need and should not run any third party antivirus. Uninstall Objective-See and do not have MalwareBytes always running in the background. MalwareBytes is a trustworthy application by a respected member of the community but you need only run it manually if you have any reason to suspect of a malware infection-which, for a properly maintained mac and a prudent user is almost never.


Let us know if the issue persists.


And read up on keeping your mac secure:


https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-8841

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May 23, 2021 12:20 PM in response to NotationMaster

You don’t need and should not run any third party antivirus. Uninstall Objective-See and do not have MalwareBytes always running in the background. MalwareBytes is a trustworthy application by a respected member of the community but you need only run it manually if you have any reason to suspect of a malware infection-which, for a properly maintained mac and a prudent user is almost never.


Let us know if the issue persists.


And read up on keeping your mac secure:


https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-8841

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May 23, 2021 12:28 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Thank you!

How can I make MalwareBytes not run in the background?


Objective-See is actually a developer, the apps are several, each one doing things that are also quite useful.

BlockBlock was the only way to avoid the known exploit that was fixed in 11.3.x without updating macOS.

Lulu is there to check the user wants to authorise outgoing internet connections and is already set up to allow Apple-related connections.


I have known about these apps for a while but used them only recently. The issue was there already before but I will try to see what happens if I remove all of them and restart the Mac.

I'm sure you know this: https://objective-see.com — I would not call it an antivirus.

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May 24, 2021 2:01 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Hello,

I have edited all the .plist of the different Objective-See apps and, so far, after a reboot, the issue is not reproducing.

I will see during my workflow if some specific app triggers it.

Last question: in Activity Monitor "Malwarebytes Agent" is still there and within the app's preferences I cannot find a way to avoid it from launching. In System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login items there is no trace of it.

Could you tell me how to prevent it from launching?

Thank you

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Changing accent colour freezes dock and app switcher

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