Dock uses 320% CPU after 10.7.2 update

I finally resolved my issue with a two prong approach. Uninstalled VMWare and switched to Parallels. And spent 1.5 hours with Apple support changing file permissions and sharing. The file sharing and permissions may be a clue, but I am not an expert. Good luck as this is a frustrating issue.

Updating to the latest VMware fixes it by the way. At least if you're on Lion.

Oh and dropbox can be a pain but if that happens, just use process monitor to kill it which resolve the overuse of cpu. Not ideal but VMware was really the real issue.

I'm running Fusion 4.1.1 and the problem still occurs.

This is so frustrating. I have been into the Apple store twice now. All they can suggest is to not use Fusion. This is not an acceptable solution for me as I need to be able to switch back and forth.

CPU is showing Doc low as 2 then spiking to 200 or better. Applications are freezing up constantly (so much for being able to Multi-Task).

Apple suggested I get a cheap Acer to do my business work on! REALLY???

There is a fix for this that worked for me on Fusion 4.1.1:

In Fusion:

Go to <Virtual Machine><Settings><Default Applications> Uncheck all boxes.

Then

Go to <Virtual Machine><Settings><Applications Menu> set "Show applications in menu bar" to NEVER.

Shutdown virtual machine.

Restart virtual machine.

If you want to try to reenable those features one at a time to find the problem one, you can try that.

But this works for me.

Hi,

this post to let you know that no matter what, the problem comes from fusion (mine was 4.1.1 fully updated).

I uninstalled it properly using appcleaner and rebooted the mac mini and dock is fine since then.

I won't reinstll it because I have a MBP with parallels and I'm very satisfied whit it.

I think vmware is a very good company for servers virtualisation but fusion is very bad vs parallels, sorry guys.

That's it ! Good lock if you keep using fusion...

Several weeks ago I also uninstalled VMware and switched to the latest version of Parallels. I am really glad I made the change. Not only did the problem go away, but I think Parallels is more stable and seems to agree with the Lion much better than VMware.

After following this thread, I have to add my agreement that Parallels is the solution. I switched 4 months ago and the difference both in stability and functionality is night and day. For instance, all of the track pad gestures work in my windows programs - which wasn't the case with Fusion.

Not to say that there aren't a few hiccups here and there with Parallels but it really is the superior product.

This problem not only appears with VMware - it also comes each and every time during a maven build. Also git access startet to cause the problem. So there might be a connection to the Terminal App.

Found the soulution to the maven build problem: just add your project folder to spotlights prive settings - so it want be scanned each time something changes 🙂

I had the same problem with the Dock process running at 100%. In addition, it consumed memory like nothing I have ever seen. It would chew up 60GB of virtual memory in a matter of hours. Also, the Dock would be completely dead and cmd+tab did not work.

I deleted ~/Library/Application Support/Dock/*.db and killed the Dock in Activity Viewer. Now it seems to behave.

For the record I tried deleting the dock .plist, setting VMWare preferences and so on but in vein. Rebooting did not help either.

If the Dock acts up on you, start Terminal and enter the following to see what the Dock is up to. The command will print the name of every file the Dock process accesses.

sudo opensnoop -n Dock

<type your password>

In my case it was accessing a file in ~/Library/Application Support/Dock like crazy.

I think I found a potential issue..

Dock maintains a couple of links to locations on disk (for example, /Users/username/Documents and /Users/username/Downloads) for quick access. It seems that certain applications which make changes to files in those locations cause the Dock's memory and CPU to peak while it tries to keep up.

As an example, I had a VMWare guest stored in ~/Documents, and it would peg the CPU every time I ran a SOLR index. As soon as I removed the ~/Documents link from the Dock, the problem went away.

For those using VMWare, I'd suggest either removing ~/Documents from Dock or moving your VMs to a directory that isn't indexed by the Dock.

For those who aren't using VMWare, I guess it'll be an exercise to figure out which app (or apps) are writing to directories watched by Dock. This script should do the trick to show you which processes are using Documents:

for i in $(lsof -f | grep Documents | awk '{print $2}'); do ps aux | grep $i | grep -v grep ; done

Hope this solves it for others.

I was having this problem and deleting this db file just worked for me. Mine was not related to VM ware but to recently getting a new computer and doing a restore from Time Capsule.

This turned out to be the solution for me.

For me, the Dock app was looking for a DefaultDesktop.jpg file and coulnd't find it. Chewed up to 75% CPU trying to locate it.

Thanks for your handy tip, I was able to see what the Doc was looking for.

To fix, for me, was to go into the System Preferences, launch the Desktop preferences and simply pick an image (any image) for the Desktop.

Then, went into the Monitor application and did a Quit on the Dock app.

Doc restarted and is back down to using ZERO % CPU.

All fixed now.

BTW : This particular system doesn't have Parallels or Fusion installed - so I knew those weren't the issue. Issuing the opensnoop command really helped!