Felix Hernandez

Q: Dock keeps moving between monitors

I have connected on to my MacBook Pro Retina (Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1) two monitors. A Thunderbolt Display connected to the Thunderbolt port (next to power connector), a HP LCD Monitor w2408h connected to the Thunderbolt port (next to USB) with a DisplayPort to DVI adapter (using DVI/HDMI cable) .

 

Display Arrangement is MacBook Retina (left), Thunderbolt Display (middle), and HP LCD (right). The main menu bar is on the middle monitor, which puts the Dock in the middle.

 

My Dock keeps moving randomly to any of the 3 monitors. It supposed to be in the middle.


MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9), Model ID: MacBookPro10,1

Posted on Nov 5, 2013 5:47 AM

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Q: Dock keeps moving between monitors

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  • by scooter339,

    scooter339 scooter339 May 6, 2014 10:46 AM in response to Felix Hernandez
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 6, 2014 10:46 AM in response to Felix Hernandez

    At first I thought this was nutty, but then I gave it a try and sorta liked it. Well, this morning it behaved randomly. I switched it off in Mission Control hard booted, I mean power cord out. Tried to log out couldn't do it, never had to. So, I pulled the plug and the behaviour is the same.

     

    BUG

     

    FAIL

     

    Essentially a good feature but it

     

    DOESN'T WORK.

     

    How about a new version of Mavericks with this corrected.

  • by newmediadave1,

    newmediadave1 newmediadave1 May 7, 2014 3:59 PM in response to Felix Hernandez
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 7, 2014 3:59 PM in response to Felix Hernandez

    At least on my Mac Pro with three thunderbolt displays, this works: go to preferences>Display>arrangement and just drag the white bar (not the whole blue square) to the monitor you want it to be on. So far it seems to stay put.

  • by David MacKinnon,

    David MacKinnon David MacKinnon May 20, 2014 10:35 PM in response to SputnikTechnologies
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 20, 2014 10:35 PM in response to SputnikTechnologies

    Like everyone else, this has really been p****ing me off.  However, using the workaround I found that it only works with the Trackpad and does not work with the Genius mouse!

  • by Ed Purkiss,

    Ed Purkiss Ed Purkiss May 21, 2014 8:44 PM in response to Felix Hernandez
    Level 1 (20 points)
    May 21, 2014 8:44 PM in response to Felix Hernandez

    Sputnik is spot on, but the key word is "center" of the screen. I've been completelly flumoxed by this one as well and that is the key. If run your mouse to the dead-middle of a monitor (go too far even) it will pull the dock there. If you go down but not in the middle and then move to the middle, maybe 30% of the time that it works. And then, trying to do it correctly will fail - you need to go to another monitor, click on some stuff, maybe even move the dock THERE, then go to the target monitor and it will work. I think the 30% bit is why people see it as random. It's definitely not a clean UI control. 

     

    +1, Sputnik.

  • by Squigler,

    Squigler Squigler May 28, 2014 3:06 AM in response to Felix Hernandez
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2014 3:06 AM in response to Felix Hernandez

    Looks like a feature for when the dock is on the bottom.

     

    A fix is (and it's a personal preference) to stick your dock to the right or left edge, it'll stay put from then on.

     

    I work with a Cintiq also, and it doesn't leave my main monitor.

  • by sholsinger,

    sholsinger sholsinger May 28, 2014 9:45 AM in response to Squigler
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2014 9:45 AM in response to Squigler

    That works when your 'primary' monitor is on the left or right of other monitors, but if you're like me where you have the primary monitor in the middle between two secondary monitors it will place the dock on one of the secondary monitors instead of the left or right of the primary monitor.

  • by Excelsior01,

    Excelsior01 Excelsior01 Jun 13, 2014 4:53 AM in response to SputnikTechnologies
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 13, 2014 4:53 AM in response to SputnikTechnologies

    thanks for sorting that

  • by thinkfarm,

    thinkfarm thinkfarm Jul 13, 2014 10:42 AM in response to SputnikTechnologies
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 13, 2014 10:42 AM in response to SputnikTechnologies

    Thank you - this helped! At least now we know how to control the behavior.

  • by JoannaStringer,

    JoannaStringer JoannaStringer Jul 17, 2014 10:41 AM in response to Felix Hernandez
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 17, 2014 10:41 AM in response to Felix Hernandez

    For some reason, I was able to work around this problem initially, but now that I've updated Mavericks it's returned with no solution.

     

    With "Displays have separate spaces" unchecked on my new work machine last month, I was able to have the menu bar show on all three of my monitors (MacBook, Thunderbolt, Wacom Cintiq) but the dock would stay at the bottom of my Thunderbolt where I wanted it.

    Now I either have to get rid of the menu bar on the Cintiq, or suffer with the dock popping up every time I make a long brushstroke or use toolbars on the bottom of the screen. Since I have my Thunderbolt in the center, setting the dock position to left or right either puts it over my Adobe toolbars on the Cintiq, or squashed onto the far side of the laptop.

     

    The best "workaround" I've found is to detach the toolbars from the sides of Photoshop + Illustrator and shorten them so that I never have to use the bottom inch of my Cintiq. =_=;

    We need to be able to set the dock and menu bars independently, otherwise, those of us with art desk jobs are losing a lot of productivity.

  • by zachmanx,

    zachmanx zachmanx Jul 21, 2014 5:49 AM in response to JoannaStringer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 21, 2014 5:49 AM in response to JoannaStringer

    I've been battling this "feature" for months. Ugh. Get rid of it, Apple!

  • by NYC Jim,

    NYC Jim NYC Jim Jul 31, 2014 5:54 PM in response to Squigler
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 31, 2014 5:54 PM in response to Squigler

    Thanks Squigler.  Your circumvention takes a little getting used to, but the does not float around any more.

  • by speakerzzzzz,

    speakerzzzzz speakerzzzzz Aug 1, 2014 3:46 PM in response to SputnikTechnologies
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 1, 2014 3:46 PM in response to SputnikTechnologies

    Thank you, man. You saved my day. I was like so bothered by this feature, until you figured it out. Honestly, I still don't think it looks like a feature. But I just learn to avoid it and "fix" it, since I can reproduce the "feature" every time now.

  • by ObeyTheFist,

    ObeyTheFist ObeyTheFist Aug 6, 2014 11:24 AM in response to SputnikTechnologies
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 6, 2014 11:24 AM in response to SputnikTechnologies

    Oh man! Thanks Sputnik!

     

    I noticed this when I got my new MacBook Pro with Mavericks pre-installed. The Dock would magically and seemingly randomly jump to my built-in monitor from my external 30". Today I noticed that when I was trying to grab a corner of a window that was filling the screen, the dock made the leap. I thought maybe it was a hot corner setting but no.

     

    Now that I know it's a feature, I'm going to use it!

  • by guzforster,

    guzforster guzforster Aug 18, 2014 5:43 PM in response to SputnikTechnologies
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2014 5:43 PM in response to SputnikTechnologies

    That's exaclty it. I use a Cintiq 13HD and discovered this by accident - you have to "click" on the monitor you want it to appear and then move the cursor to where the dock would be. This makes the dock appear there.

  • by glazou,

    glazou glazou Sep 3, 2014 8:25 AM in response to Felix Hernandez
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Sep 3, 2014 8:25 AM in response to Felix Hernandez

    I confirm this bug on Mavericks (10.9.4) with one external monitor attached to a MBP 15" non-retina. The two screens belong to the same space. It happened a few times in the recent past but I thought I did something wrong. Then a few minutes ago, while I was NOT touching the keyboard nor the magic trackpad, the dock suddenly switched from my external monitor to my MBP screen... Ahem.

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