Sidebar scroll bar flashing intermittently

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Level 1

9 points

Sidebar scroll bar flashing intermittently

Hi all,

I am running 10.8.2 and have bene noticing that my sidebar scroll bar flashes intermittently as if I am scrolling. This happens even when I'm not touching my mouse and while I have a different application up front (i.e., the desktop is just visible in the bg, but I'm not working on it). I see this happening in multiple windows, and not always simultaneously (one window might do it, while the other does not). It's almost like someone is mousing over the sidebar, but it never actually scrolls. Anyone ever seen this?

I thought it might be because of files that I was currenly working on (refreching due to autoupdate, etc.), but the folders I have open are empty. They are in an external drive, but not all windows associated with the same drive are doing this.

I worried that someone had actually gained access to my machine remotely.

I am behind a firewall, but have file sharing and remote login enabled. I have seen a few messages in the Console log that say:

Allow sshd-keygen-wrapper connecting from [unknown IP address]. These addresses are located in other countries. I am really not sure what this means, though.

Some of these look like a brute force attack (system log has a warning and then closed connection). Others are not associated with a warning.

I had Apache running, but disabled it. The same thing keeps happening.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Nov 7, 2012 12:33 PM

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Answer 1

jaeheung

Level 1

10 points

Feb 14, 2013 10:51 AM in response to jaeheung

More details I found...

It was the mouse disconnecting and reconnecting intermittently because of the bad USB hub, that caused flashing scroll bars.

You can simulate it by unplugging and plugging your mouse. Many OS X applications (Finder, Outlook, activity monitor, terminal, etc) show permanent scroll bars when a mouse is present and auto-hide scroll bars when only a touch pad is used.

So, in my case, the USB hub malfunction caused the mouse and the Ethernet dongle disconnect/reconnect, and the mouse was related to the scroll bar and the Ethernet dongle was to the kernel_tasks problem, I guess.

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Answer 2

JMug Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 14, 2013 11:28 AM in response to jaeheung

Thanks for both of your posts, jaeheung. I have a USB hub connected, but it's the hub included in a cinema display. I'll see if this solves the problem, though I have not had the issue as much recently. I use a magic mouse, so unless there is something going on with bluetooth or it sensing that it's constantly being touched, I'm not sure that the mouse is it. But, thanks for the ideas.

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Answer 3

jaeheung

Level 1

10 points

Feb 12, 2013 11:13 AM in response to JMug

Hi JMug,

I had a very similar problem and similar concerns also. Mine was worse that my mac sometimes went unresponsive after having huge number (>50k) of threads in the kernel_tasks process and loud fan noise.

I found your posting while I was trying to troubleshoot my problems (yours was the only exact match for one of my problems) and I hope my experience can help you.

Both flashing scroll bar problem and the kernel_tasks threads problem are gone now... since I got rid of the USB hub!

I am not sure it was the cable or the hub, didn't bother to test.

I was using a built-in USB hub in my Dell monitor, just for a better cable management. Now I am using the USB ports in the Mac keyboard. The keyboard looks a little ugly with three wires attached, but no more problems.

This kind of hardware issues make us waste a lot of time and I really hate them.

Hope this helps.

Jae

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