Someonesomething

Q: In Mountain Lion, I keep seeing a dialogue box flash on my screen very quickly--almost too fast to notice. I'm worried that it is spyware taking screen shots--help!

Has anyone else seen this? I have no idea what it's doing. It's interrupted fullscreen movie watching previously. When it happens, I have no idea what it's doing. I looked through my activity monitor to see what's doing what, but I couldn't find anything that looked suspicious off-hand (meaning I have no idea).

 

Can anyone offer any suggestions about how to figure out what this is? Even if it's not spyware, I'd like to know.

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Sep 3, 2012 2:33 PM

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Q: In Mountain Lion, I keep seeing a dialogue box flash on my screen very quickly--almost too fast to notice. I'm worried that it is ... more

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  • by Someonesomething,

    Someonesomething Someonesomething Sep 6, 2012 1:01 PM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 6, 2012 1:01 PM in response to Someonesomething

    Could someone please help me figure this out? I got this software from the App Store with my credit card, and I shop online and check my bank records online. If it's not secure, I want to know.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Sep 6, 2012 1:06 PM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 9 (50,953 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 6, 2012 1:06 PM in response to Someonesomething

    You haven't told us enough to even make a guess, what is 'this software' that you got with a credit card, can you read the dialog box?

  • by CT,

    CT CT Sep 6, 2012 1:11 PM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 6 (17,882 points)
    Notebooks
    Sep 6, 2012 1:11 PM in response to Someonesomething

    It's hard to answer your question because you have provided virtually no information.  Still, a quick search reveals that one common cause of this behavior is a combination of Java and the Firewall. Are these enabled?

     

    charlie

  • by Alfred DeRose,

    Alfred DeRose Alfred DeRose Sep 6, 2012 1:12 PM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 5 (7,165 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 6, 2012 1:12 PM in response to Someonesomething

    Try turning off notifications and see if that helps.

  • by Someonesomething,

    Someonesomething Someonesomething Sep 6, 2012 4:32 PM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 6, 2012 4:32 PM in response to Csound1

    Wow, Csound1--"this software" = OSX Mountain Lion. Thanks for the friendly rude reply, but please read OP next time.

  • by Someonesomething,

    Someonesomething Someonesomething Sep 6, 2012 4:36 PM in response to Csound1
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 6, 2012 4:36 PM in response to Csound1

    Additional notes on happy helper person Csound1: If you'd taken the time to read the question, you also would have known that, no, it can't be read--the dialogue box is almost too fast to notice, much less read.

  • by thomas_r.,Helpful

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Sep 6, 2012 4:43 PM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 7 (30,929 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 6, 2012 4:43 PM in response to Someonesomething

    This is not spyware, so you can set your mind at ease there. It's hard to say what it might be, but I have heard some people attribute it to a firewall, as CT mentioned. That is only one possible explanation. Try opening the Console app (found in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder) immediately after you see this alert, and see what was logged at exactly the same time the alert appeared.

  • by Someonesomething,

    Someonesomething Someonesomething Sep 6, 2012 4:47 PM in response to CT
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 6, 2012 4:47 PM in response to CT

    CT--if I ignore your first sentence, it almost sounds like you're ready to treat me like a human being, rather than someone you think is beneath your dignity. As I mentioned to Csound1: if you'd read above, you would know that if it sounds like I'm giving you virtually no information, it's because I have virtually no information. Usually in this situation, the good idea is to offer suggestions as to what to look at to glean information about the problem.

     

    But thanks for your suggestion. Googling "osx lion java firewall" got me a screen capture of the dialogue box some people see. In my case, it's too fast to tell whether it's exactly this. Probably it is--it looks similar enough.I'll know for sure, if the dialogue box doesn't show anymore now that I've fixed it.

  • by Someonesomething,

    Someonesomething Someonesomething Sep 6, 2012 4:50 PM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 6, 2012 4:50 PM in response to thomas_r.

    Thanks very much, Thomas!--I've followed some supposedly safe steps from another post to make it stop. If it doesn't, I'll know to take a look at the console next time.

  • by stevenfrombrownsburg,

    stevenfrombrownsburg stevenfrombrownsburg Sep 6, 2012 4:52 PM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 2 (340 points)
    Sep 6, 2012 4:52 PM in response to Someonesomething

    Does it pop up in the middle of the screen, or the upper right corner?

     

    If it's in the upper right corner, it is most likely notifications (email, messages and various other apps will send you notifications when you receive emails, messages, or other items).  They pop up for 5 seconds by default, and if you are watching a movie in full screen, they might bleed through, but quickly disappear as the movie refreshes the screen.  You can show your list of notifications by clicking on the far right icon (looks like a text list) on the tool bar at the top (or by doing a 3-finger swipe from right to left on the touchpad).

     

    Notifications are the only pop up boxes I'm getting, but then again, I don't have a lot of 3rd party software installed.

  • by Csound1,

    Csound1 Csound1 Sep 6, 2012 4:57 PM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 9 (50,953 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 6, 2012 4:57 PM in response to Someonesomething

    Someonesomething wrote:

     

    Additional notes on happy helper person Csound1: If you'd taken the time to read the question, you also would have known that, no, it can't be read--the dialogue box is almost too fast to notice, much less read.

    So, you have a dialog box that you can't read ... under what circumstances does it appear? is there a consistent prior event?

     

    Good luck.

  • by stevenfrombrownsburg,

    stevenfrombrownsburg stevenfrombrownsburg Sep 6, 2012 5:07 PM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 2 (340 points)
    Sep 6, 2012 5:07 PM in response to Someonesomething

    I can pretty much guarantee it's not a Java update notification.  I just had one of those bounce my App Store icon.

  • by dickinsf,

    dickinsf dickinsf Feb 8, 2013 11:44 AM in response to Someonesomething
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 8, 2013 11:44 AM in response to Someonesomething

    I have this same problem, so it is puzzling to me that so few understand it. The message flashes in the center of the screen much to quickly to be read, but it does grab a keystroke or two when typing, which is most annoying. It  is not like the notifications that appear for several seconds in the upper right corner of the screen. These notifications do not appear to be related to the program running, as I have had them occur while using Mail, Pages, Safari, and probably others. Aha...it just happened again while writing this!

  • by therealikt,

    therealikt therealikt Mar 3, 2013 9:11 PM in response to dickinsf
    Level 1 (18 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 3, 2013 9:11 PM in response to dickinsf

    Just open your console program, and see what it was looking for, it would say something like "cant open input server...." and will give the name of an application that is causing the error (usually a 3rd party thing you probably don't know about). Use AppCleaner to remove it, it will be in the "other" tab. In my case, it was some ancient program called "multiclutch" which allows you to customize mousepad genstures. Given the date, I'm guessing this just migrated from Macbook to Macbook until eventually I was running Mountain Lion, and it no longer worked. No doubt I coudn't have installed it again, since it's not compatible, but remnants remained and crashed whenever it sensed some input that (apparently) worked on who-knows-how-many versions ago.

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