Why dock icon won't stay in position?

Question

Why dock icon won't stay in position?

My Safari icon won't stay in position at the location where I want it on my dock. After placing it next to the relevant applications in the dock, the Safari icon automatically moves to the right most position in the dock (where I don't want it). I subscribe to Mobile Me - which may be causing this issue. All of my other computers have Safari in the desired location. Is there some file that I should trash, after which the dock will rebuild? Any suggestions or workarounds, please. Thank you. Dale

G4, G5, MacMini, Powerbook, iMac, iPods, iPhone, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 21, 2011 11:46 AM

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Answer 1

K Shaffer

Level 7

34,966 points

Mar 21, 2011 12:20 PM in response to Dale H. Eckerman Jr

The position of Safari's icon in the Dock in my Macs, is on the left side by Default.

That appears to be the natural position, as installed, by the System. Even when
I change the location of the Dock, from Bottom of display to the Right side, it stays.

Since my computers each have at least four browsers, I keep browsers together;
and Safari's icon position doesn't matter to me. Mostly, I use the other three more.

There may be a way modify the Dock; seems to me there had been some 'haxies'
or other third-party Dock modifiers, even extra Docks can be added in OS X.

Perhaps someone has another kind of answer. I know when I use OnyX, that I
can choose to 'Lock the Dock' icons into one position. And I'd have to unlock it
before I could add or remove any icons, after enabling this function.

So, that's one method; and you can get Titanium's OnyX free from their D/L page.
If you do, notice it can perform several tasks in addition to changing the GUI...
• Titanium's Software - Home: http://www.titanium.free.fr/

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

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Answer 2

Mar 21, 2011 2:25 PM in response to Dale H. Eckerman Jr

I ought to be able to place ANY icon into ANY position in my dock, regardless of the function that the icon represents. The Safari icon used to stay put. Today, it "squirts" away from where I place (drag) it. How can I get it to behave?
This is driving me nuts. The solution is probably simple. Can someone please help? Thank you.

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Answer 3

K Shaffer

Level 7

34,966 points

Mar 21, 2011 7:17 PM in response to Dale H. Eckerman Jr

You could try to quit and then restart the Dock:
Open Terminal and execute command line killall Dock

...That's how you can restart your Mac's Dock.

However, when your dock is acting up, the cause may be something
messing up in the system. So preventative and routine maintenance
is usually advised. All Docks in my current four OS X Macs, are fine.
Never had problems with Dock, after OS X 10.1.

And I've been using OnyX, Cocktail, and other interface utility tools
to help fix and maintain my Macs in OS X since these were available.
Before that, in older Mac OS, other methods of madness were used.

One of the most general suggestions, if nothing else is wrong with a
Mac, would be to get and re-install the Combo OS X update file; in
your 10.5.8 system, re-install that; restart & repair disk permissions.
If that doesn't work and if *killall dock* did nothing, 'archive & install.'

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

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Answer 4

Mar 22, 2011 4:55 AM in response to Dale H. Eckerman Jr

I solved my problem. For the record (as well as any other user that encounters the same problem and reads this), I used MobileMe to replace the dock information on the computer with the difficulty. There must have been some conflict between MobileMe and the computer - as the reason for my issue. I knew that the information stored on MobileMe (from syncing with other of my computers at different locations) was accurate. By replacing the dock information from MobileMe, the issue on the computer with the problem was solved. My Safari icon now stays in the correct position on the dock.

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Answer 5

Dennis.

Level 1

5 points

Apr 2, 2011 11:00 AM in response to Dale H. Eckerman Jr

same thing is happening to one of my laptops. hope we get a reply.

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Answer 6

svenjick

Level 1

0 points

Jun 20, 2011 7:15 AM in response to Dale H. Eckerman Jr

Hi,

I have just spent two hours with apple support on this issue. A few interesting things:

- they hardly know about this problem

- it is a Mobile Me issue, but Mobile Me support refuses to consider it as such

Now for the fix:

- deleting the dock.plist file does NOT solve the issue

- resetting the PRAM does NOT solve this issue

The only was I have found (taken from here) is to reset the Mobile Me synchro. I went a step further and unregistered my computer completely. Then re-subscribed it, and chose that the preferences on Mobile Me overwrite those on the faulty computer.

Hope this helps.

Kindly,

Nicolas

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