Gray background after wakeup after lion upgrade?

I have the same issue.

Dual monitiors. External monitor is fine - has the defined background, Macbook Pros background is grey. Cant set it to anything else, just stays grey.

Macbook Pro (late 2008), Lion 10.7.2.

I've been getting this problem too. Thought 10.7.2 fixed it as I didn't experience the problem for a while and was really happy but the problem has come back. Having to use the killall Dock command everytime I wake my 2011 iMac is terribly annoying.

Never happened in Snow Leopard and doesn't happen in Windows 7 (boot camp) either.

In my case the grey background does not happen any more. Instead of it i have some strange behaviour of the windows appearence: after i disconnect the external display, i get the most windows having wrong (very dark) colors. First i thought the color scheme of my monitor was wrong, but a little time later i've realized, that i can correct the colors, but restarting the application.

I think that the both bugs are connected in some way.

Has anyone else found that this issue is related to the (apparently still problematic) combo of Lion + Fullscreen Applications + External displays?

I encountered similar issues just now for the first time, found this thread, and then subsequently found other articles pointing to full screen compatibility being at fault - ie. it's arguably the 3rd party software that's breaking Lion when it goes full screen, not vice versa.

Haven't seen enough bugs on my end (yet) to report with any accuracy, but the dual-screen gray background and other screen/GUI glitches I experienced were only resolved when I exited full-screen for all running programs.

(I was running Chrome, Evernote, and iTunes at the time)

I agree with Michael-Owen. Once I quit Chrome and Safari (only 2 full screen supportive apps I had open), and then launched my screensaver (via a hot corner) my background was restored on its own. So yes this does seem like it may be a full screen bug. I am going to guess the culprit may be Chrome since this was always running when I got the gray screen on my second desktop.

I'll try uninstalling chrome and see if the grey screen of crap comes back or not.

I strongly suspect both the preceding posts are barking up a wrong tree (or two). I have the problem and don't even have Chrome on my computer. Furthermore, the problem arises after sleep even when there are no third-party applications open -- indeed, no applications other than Apple's standard "always runs."

@dinglebat No one here is barking up any tree. We are just trying to pinpoint the reasoning behind the greyscreen to find a solution. Thank you for your input nonetheless.

After testing the issue the culprit is indeed not Chrome or any third party app (since I uninstalled Chrome and left only Safari running). The issue arises with "any app" that supports full screen. After quitting Safari (the only app I had running) and manually putting my computer to sleep, when I woke the system the grey screen was gone and my background was restored automatically.

I tried testing this with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Spotify and the grey screen did not return. Only after putting the system to sleep with Safari / Aperture / iTunes / Chrome open is when I lose my secondary background. All of which are apps that support full screen.

So far I can pinpoint that this bug lies within any apps that support full screen like Micael-Owen suggested.

Apple needs to find a solution to this bug in their next update. For now the only solution is to quit any apps that support full screen before the computer sleeps to avoid the issue (or to live with it and us killall Dock in terminal).

I miss my Snow Leopard :-(

I have the same exact problem on my MBP 13". I have just had it 1 week, and it was a refurb. upgraded to Lion.

Nothing was attached, no monitors. On battery power, sitting for about 20 min. I came back to it with the gray screen and the little boxes you were talking about, that moved around with the cursor. I ran the cursor over the sign in screen and when it appeared I hit the return, as I have no password set, and I got everything back.I did not have a full screen just my background. The open four screens were smaller, as they are when they first open.

My question, should I return this MBP refurb and get a new replacement, and just pay the bucks, before I have had it long. Or is this something that could be fixed with a 'fix" from apple, when they get to it. hummm.

Anyones suggestions helpful...

Message was edited by: ibhyacinth

Same pb here.

So i created a script with the following commands inside :

sudo kill -HUP `ps -ef |grep [D]ock.app | awk '{print $2}'`

When the desktop background goes gray, is just call my script.

Can propably be easily wrapped into an .app.

Hope it helps.

Same in here... latest i7 wih OS X 10.7.2.

Returning from Sleep Mode causes gray background on main screen.

I started to be really upset with my latest apple products... I own a MBPi7 2011, MB late 2007, iPod 4g, Iphone 4s, iPad 2, Apple TV, and I'm having problems with every single one of them... except for my ipod nano 6g...

And this issue is nothing... time to time when I restart the computer if my external monitor is hook up to my mbp, the computer get frozen on a light blue screen... the only solutions is to desconect the external monitor and force to restart...

😠

Same problem with my MacBook using an external Monitor.

I noticed that the gray background after waking up is more common when I have low RAM.

Mac Os Lion 10.7.2

Macbook Pro 15'

4GB DDR 3

Graphics: NVIDIA Geforce 9400M / NVIDIA Geforce 9600 GT

External Monitor 1920 x1200 (Mini DisplayPort - DVI Adaptaer).

Yes, I don't think is related to the free memory... I have 8GB on my MBP and it just happened with

Free: 3.18GB

Wired: 1.44GB

Active: 2.20GB

Inactive: 1.17GB

Used: 4.81GB

I guess is related to how Lion manage external monitors... very deficient in my case...

This is nothing you can fix, it is a problem with Lion's ability to update the dock process when multiple monitors are connected and waking from sleep. It is a problem for everyone that runs multiple monitors...

Hi There! This one is to try... In another threat the user Nealf suggest the following to fix a problem with recognizing a second monitor... it didn't fix my problem but since I did that I don't see the gray background after wakeup anymore...

He said that he had set a random screen saver and that was triggering his problem...

I check and I have random screen saver too... since I change it to any other if didn't fix my main problem (having trouble to recognize my external monitor, sometimes failing to...) but what I notice is that for now the gray background didn't came back anymore...

Anyway is something that apple should fix... but give this a try. I will keep an eye on it.

Same happens to me. MBP 13 mid-2010 in clam shell mode with only one display (external).

killall Dock resolve problem but only temporary. It not a solution I would like to see. Apple, what are you doing there?