Why does Finder jump around (jump around)

Hi B and H,

I agree with B, spring-loaded, as far as I understand the function, should not cause the scroll focus change as we are experiencing.

Instead of just turning it on or off, you could change the delay related set to one of the extreme points, slow or fast, and see if this brings some change. This way we could be sure about this being related or not related.

Good luck.

Hi H,

If you are considering a new install again - which is not necessary so far - you could have better results by making a good backup of your personal files and applications and perform a Zero Out Erase and install Snow Leopard after that, continuing with a step by step for each released update install.

Are you still with the 10.6.3 version?

Good luck.

Hi H,

For the icons identifying problem you could change them. Open the desired icon image with Preview (any kind of image as GIF, JPG, ICN, TIFF or any other), choose Edit>Select All>Edit>Copy, after that select the item which icon you want to change and choose in the Finder menu File>Get Info, now at the Inspector Window that will open you select the top icon right below this window title bar and then choose Edit>Paste and the image you want will replace the item icon. This way you can identify items easily.

For Parallels I can not say a thing, I never used, is there an option to launch that manually or this can only be launched at startup time?

For you to record your screen you can use QuickTime Player, you can use the File>New Screen Recording option.


Good luck.

Oh thank the maker. Ever since I upgraded to 10.6, I've been annoyed by this but couldn't figure out what was causing it.

Hi there,

I just had the opportunity to answer an Apple Support Survey and used this question, among others, as reference for a suggestion for a further deep information offering.

Hope in some time we can solve this or at least understand.

Regards, K.

I just know that 10.5 didn't do this crap. Unfortunately I can replicate the behavior on all of my macs since after trying it out and not noticing problems on this one I went ahead and used my family pack to upgrade all my macs.

I just want to say that I am experiencing this problem on my 2010 Mac Mini as well. And turning off spring loaded folders does not fix anything.

This was annoying the **** out of me for ages, especially as everyone seemed to be saying "oh, mine doesn't do that".

It's when you have selected list view and order by anything other than file name.
Particularly date.

The finder widow refreshes frequently, when sorted by date, and snaps back to the
selected item. To stop it happening, click on the name column heading to order the list by name. If you want them ordered by date, you have to keep clicking near where you want to be in the list.

I'd call it a bug.

Actually, that doesn't seem to be it - at least, just sorting by date
doesn't cause it on folders which don't exhibit the behaviour, though
turning off sorting by date on folders which do do this, seems to stop
it.

Definitely a bug, then.

Another observation - seems OK with date created, jumpy with date modified.

My guess is that if the folder has a file which changes in the aspect
you're sorting on, that forces a view refresh and the jump-to-selected
behaviour. Hence, in your home dir, some or other metafile, desktop
attributes or journal file or something gets updated every few seconds,
causing refreshes.

Argh, now having read the rest of the posts, turning off "calculate all sizes" stops it, as per the post labelled "solved" (doh!). I guess every time it calculates a new size, or whenever the size of something changes, it refreshes. Why it only hops to the selected item when sorting by date is anyone's guess.

Actually, this question is not truly answered. The "answer" only addresses one situation and lends no insight into the cause. I have the same problem from time to time. It is tied to selecting the "Date Modified" column in conjunction with some option that causes the window contents to be changing with time. I have tested the option to calculate all sizes and the option to view all (+hidden) files (note: not a UI accessible option). Both result in the effect.

My action was to open a finder list mode window with a long list of file names in it so that scrolling was needed. Then a file name was selected. Then the window scrolled so that the selection is not showing. After a short time the selection would jump scroll back into view. The view all files option makes this even more annoying than does the calculate all sizes option because once all the file sizes are filled in, the problem ceases but something else goes on with the view all files option. Incidentally, application packages (which are a type of folder) act like the show all sizes option is on for them regardless of the option switch setting. So, a folder view with a lot of applications listed will also cause the jump problem as the sizes are filled in.

This problem is very annoying if a user has something selected and wants to scroll around to look for some other something. Switch to the "Name" column to look around or quickly change the selection before the jump has a chance to occur.

Still not fixed in 10.6.6