Dock and menus suddenly require clicks

Question

Dock and menus suddenly require clicks

The last few months I've noticed an odd behavior in my MacBook Pro, a mid-2010 15" model with 2.66GHz i7 and 4GB of RAM. It is running OSX 10.8.4, patched to current. I have the dock configured for auto-hide, no special access features enabled. I don't recall this behavior under 10.7 and earlier, and it seems to be much more frequent the last six months or so.

The problem will typically occur after a few days of use. On awakening from sleep, the dock will no longer unhide when the cursor is placed at the appropriate screen edge. At the same time, menu items that normally auto-expand on mouse-over require mouse clicks to expand. As an example, the finder 'View' menu normally requires a click to open, but thereafter is highlighted as one mouses over it. Any with a submenu automatically expand as you mouse over that particular entry. When the problem occurs, the 'View' menu will open on click, but lines do not highlight as you mouse over them. If you click on a line, it then highlights. If the line has a submenu, the submenu only opens if you click on the arrow mark.

My work usually requires keeping on a number of issue for days on end. To manage this I make liberal use of Spaces and have a second screen. So while a reboot does fix the problem, it also requires abandoning most of my ongoing work and restarting it afterwards.

As I said, it's become much more of a problem in the last six months or so. In that period my employer has loaded a fair amount of intrusive software onto the machine, but it definitely began before that.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), 4GB RAM

Posted on Jul 24, 2013 3:35 PM

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Answer 1

Z_B-B

Level 2

296 points

Jul 25, 2013 4:05 AM in response to Steve Simmons

Hi ,

Your Dock has become unresponsive. It's rare, but it does sometimes happen. To fix it you just need to kill the Dock app and it will automatically restart. To kill the Dock:

Go to Applications ➔ Utilities ➔ Terminal.app

Type

killall Dock

If that doesn't work, type

killall -9 Dock

The Dock will vanish for a few moments and then pop back up good as new. None of your apps should be affected.

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Answer 2

Jul 25, 2013 12:26 PM in response to Z_B-B

Already tried tha. Note also that it seems to be a broader problem than just the dock; it's as if things that should auto-activate on mouse-overs stop activating and require clicks instead. I've tried both the killall on the dock and the and a force quit/restart on the finder. Neither changes the performance.

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Answer 3

Jul 25, 2013 12:38 PM in response to Steve Simmons

A couple of other points worth noting:

I did a permissions repair on the disk, problem occurred again a few days later.
This problem has apparently been seen by others going back to 2009, see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1880183 for an example. There's no solution listed there.
The discussion at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2738309 indicates a similar problem when using a Logitech USB mouse; updating to the most recent version of Logitech Control Center seemed to help them. I have a Logitech wireless mouse, but Control Center is up to date and when the problem occurs it occurs both with the mouse and the touchpad.

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Answer 4

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Jul 25, 2013 1:50 PM in response to Steve Simmons

Try removing the Dock .db file.

You need to look in your user Library/Applications Support/Dock for the .db. Hold down the option key while using the Finder “Go To Folder” command. Enter ~/ Library/Applications Support/Dock. Move the .db to your desktop.

Then try a dock reset.

Applications/Utilities/Terminal enter the command

killall Dock

Log out/in test. If it works okay, delete the .db from the desktop.

If the Dock is the same, return the .db to where you got them from, overwriting the newer ones.

If you prefer to make your user library permanently visible, use the Terminal command found below.

Show User Library

You might want to bookmark the command. I had to use it again after I installed 10.8.4. I have also been informed that if you drag the user library to Finder it will remain visible.

If that doesn't work,try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. If Back-to-My Mac is selected in System Preferences, the Guest account will not work. The intent is to see if it is specific to one account or a system wide problem. This account can be deleted later.

Isolating an issue by using another user account

If the problem is still there, try booting into the Safe Mode. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application uninstaller. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don't do them all at once.

Safe Mode

Safe Mode - About

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Answer 5

Jul 26, 2013 8:07 AM in response to Eric Root

Eric - the problem occurred again this morning when my machine work up.

I made a copy of the .db file, deleted it, did killall Dock - problem persisted. I now have a new much smaller .db file, tho. :-)

Did a forced restart on finder - problem persisted.

Created another admin account, attempted to change user to it - was able to enter ID and password, but got the rotating lines (not the spinny color wheel of death) for five minutes. Finally had to force a power down. Rebooted in safe mode. No obvious problems. Was able to log in as both myself and the test id, no problems. Rebooted into normal mode. Was able to log in as myself, menus and dock work properly on mouseover - but they always do after a reboot or logout. Was able to change user to alternate account; those menus/dock work fine as well.

So at this point I'm waiting for the next occurance of the problem and will then try going back and forth between the two account without logging out. Will see if the problem also happens in the new account, and if still present after returning to my main accounts.

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Answer 6

Dec 18, 2013 2:53 PM in response to Steve Simmons

For the record, this problem persists with Mavericks.

At this point I know what triggers the problem. When I attach a second monitor to the mac, the problem *sometimes* begins. Sometimes might be as infrequent as one in ten times. Similarly, removing and/or reattaching the monitor *sometimes* cures the problem.

The problem occurs with two different external monitors, both of which have moderately higher number of pixels than the Macbook Pro. They are configured with the second monitor to the right of the laptop monitor, and mission control does not treat them as separate spaces.

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Answer 7

Jan 15, 2014 12:42 PM in response to Steve Simmons

Problem still persists with the .1 release of mavricks as well. Based on continued close observation of what I'm doing when it happens, it appears the attachment and removal of the external monitor is the primary trigger.

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Answer 8

Jan 29, 2014 6:21 PM in response to Steve Simmons

Another update - about ten days ago my wireless Logitech mouse got very very flakey. When this happened, it seemed to make the trackpad inoperative as well. This began shortly after going from 10.9.0 to 10.9.1. I verified that I was on the newest version of the Logitech Control Center, and finally uninstalled Control Center completely. Since then I have not had an instance of the problem with mouse-overs not activating menus and the dock.

Mind you, I can't use my Logitech mouse, but on the whole it's been worth that particular loss.

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