Sonoma says Dock position on screen is configured by a profile

Ok I fixed it. I tried ChatGPT4 to see if it had any ideas and it basically told me all the generic crap and ultimately advised me to nuke the config file via:

defaults delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
killall Dock

But my dock is a very complicated affair that has been years in the making and I definitely did not love the idea of rebuilding it from scratch. So I retrieved last week's variant from TimeMachine to pursue another solution.

That's when I remembered I have Xcode, so I popped open the config file and BEHOLD the only two parameters marked "immutable" (Dock location & Dock Size) had a boolean "YES" set upon them.

I flipped those bits, did a killall Dock, and Bob's your mother's brother.

Problem solved.

Do you have Screen Time enabled?

Some of its restrictions will generate the "configured by a profile" message.

I don't use Screen Time, so not sure if that is something that can be controlled with it.

Thanks "kallisti" for looking into this issue.  

To reset my iMac dock back to the default settings in the Terminal it would not accept:

defaults delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

killall Dock

But it did accept and worked using:

defaults delete com.apple.dock.plist; killall Dock

I guess the syntax is not always the same for everyone.

D Volkman wrote:

Thanks "kallisti" for looking into this issue.  

To reset my iMac dock back to the default settings in the Terminal it would not accept:

defaults delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

killall Dock

But it did accept and worked using:

defaults delete com.apple.dock.plist; killall Dock

I guess the syntax is not always the same for everyone.

It's interesting that the syntax didn't work; I'm not sure if it has anything to do with all the extra bash stuff I have installed including bash v. 5.x

Sevardin wrote:

While trying to figure out why Widgets are broken, I loaded the Desktop & Dock section of System Settings and noticed that for “Position on screen,” there is an alert triangle with the notice “This setting has been configured by a profile.” I cannot change the setting. I have not, as far as I know, ever set up and sort of configuration profiles on my Mac, and this is my personal machine. I do not have the same message on my Mac mini, where I also updated to Sonoma.

Any suggestions? Searching the Web has been quite unhelpful.

ref >System Settings...

for the new macOS—To be proactive you can file a bug report /submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

I also have this issue but only the Dock Size is grayed out. I have no profiles on this computer, a new iMac M3 with Sonoma. I did migrate my older iMac intel with Monterey and I see that its Dock Size is also grayed out. I also have no profiles on that computer. ???

I do not use Screen Time and it is not enabled.

I did submit a bug report to Apple.

Did anyone figure this out? I just migrated from an i9 to an M3 Max and this exact problem is happening