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Mission Control stops working after a while

Looking at the forum it seems I am alone in this.

Mission Control ceases to work after a few hours.

I first find this out when nothing happens with a four finger swipe.

Then if I try to click on the dock icon , zilch. It blinks to tell me I clicked on it and that's all.

I then go to System Prefs-Mission Control and try turning things off and then on again but still no joy.

The only way I have been able to get it functioning again is to restart.

This is now a daily theme since the upgrade to Lion.

Is anybody else experiencing this?

Any clues as to what I should look for in the logs?

MacPro early 2008, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 6GB RAM 2TB HD Pioneer 112 and 118 superdrives

Posted on Jul 26, 2011 7:38 AM

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11 replies

Jul 26, 2011 7:51 AM in response to jhpreleude

Interesting, type Mission Control in the "Ask a question" box and nothing much comes up.

Start a discussion and a whole lot of Mission Control items appear in "More like this".

Guess I have to get used to interface.


Anyway I found a solution suggested for a crashing Mission Control regarding removing unused hidden files in my home directory. Tried that and then also restarted the Dock.


Mission Control came back!


I will see if it lasts the day and report back.


If it does I will close this thread.

Jul 27, 2011 4:35 PM in response to Josh Glover

Mission Control is still functioning after a couple of days.


I will accept that the correction was to remove outdated hidden files from my home folder.


For me this was relatively easy as I use the "Total Finder" app and have "show hidden files" as an option.

There are many ways to show hiden files in Finder this was just the way I used. Most third party system tune up utilities can also enable this as can a direct command in the Terminal app.


I chose to delete all hidden files dated 2008 or earlier as well as ones I knew were associated with apps long since deleted.


Once this was done and the Dock restarted my Mission Control blues went away.


I consider the matter resolved.🙂

Jul 27, 2011 6:27 PM in response to Josh Glover

As I mentioned files dated 2008 or earlier and those I knew were associated with delted apps.

I chose 2008 as a date as I figured if the file had not been modified or accessed since then I obviously don't have much to do with the app that created it.


Also, I figured if I deleted something I shouldn't then I would simply need to re-install the associated app (which would no doubt tell me something was amiss next time I launched it.)


From what I have noticed, the hidden files here are usually associated with registrations and prefs the app wants to keep out of view. As I can easily re-enter serials or licenses it didn't matter if I made an error and deleted something that was not a problem.


The files you have will be quite different to mine.

Jul 28, 2011 7:42 AM in response to jhpreleude

OK I was too hasty.


Seems the issue did not get resolved.


Then I found this...


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3193150


Deleted the three preference files, restarted the dock (was not able to logout/login as I had something running and didn't want to stop it) and Mission Control is working again.


Of course I need to re-do the dock and reapply other prefs I had previously set up.


See how it looks, and if it is still working in the morning.

Mission Control stops working after a while

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