OS X Scroll Bars Will Not Go Away!

Question

Level 2

466 points

OS X Scroll Bars Will Not Go Away!

Hey there,

As you can see in the image below, the scroll bars in the finder and other applications will not dissappear. I am aware of the setting in System Preferences > General for changing the scroll bar interface. Right now, it says, "Show scroll bars: Always". Every time I set the scroll bars to "Automatically based on mouse or trackpad", nothing happens. When I quit System Preferences and open it back up again, the option is automatically set back to "Always". My scroll bar preferences will not save!

I read elsewhere that Mavericks doesn't like certain USB mouses which can cause a behavior like this. However, I do not have a USB mouse plugged in. I did have a USB mouse plugged in in the past, but not for many months.

I would really prefer not to have to do a clean install. I already tried repairing disk permissions with no results. It's really bugging me! Is there someone out there that can help me please? Thank you for your time.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2), 3.4 GHz i7, 16GB RAM

Posted on Feb 26, 2014 4:45 PM

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Answer 1

caoyy

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2017 3:36 AM in response to Born Apple

System Preferences > General > Show scroll bars: When scrolling

then relaunch finder

system version: 10.13.1

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Answer 2

Feb 26, 2014 6:06 PM in response to Born Apple

The easy first thing to try when a setting does not "take" is to reset NVRAM.

Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

(from http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379)

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Answer 3

Born Apple Author

Level 2

466 points

Feb 26, 2014 6:21 PM in response to Eustace Mendis

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, that did not work! How annoying.

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Answer 4

Feb 26, 2014 6:30 PM in response to Born Apple

Click on the desktop so Finder is active.

Hold the Option key down and click Go in the menu bar, and select Library from the drop down list.

In Library, open Preferences.

In Preferences, look for: com.apple.systempreferences.plist.

Trash that file.

Restart.

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Answer 5

Born Apple Author

Level 2

466 points

Feb 26, 2014 6:48 PM in response to Eustace Mendis

Wow. Still, no dice. But something very strange happened when I trashed that file. After restart, it came up with a white login screen and in place of my username it said "[UPDATE NEEDED]". I entered in my password, and it opens up Disk Utility! I thought I might of damaged my drive. I ran a "Verify Disk" and everything came out okay. Upon another restart, everything is back to normal. It still won't let me choose "Automatically based on mouse or trackpad". This is very weird.

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Answer 6

Minesque

Level 1

0 points

Oct 17, 2015 7:30 AM in response to Born Apple

I'm having the same problem. it started exactly when I bought and started using my Magic Mouse. I had Yosemite installed and now although I've updated to El Capitan, I'm still encountering it. I tried several times going to System Preferences > General > Show Scroll Bars and choosing "Automatically based on mouse or trackpad" but as soon as I exit System Preferences and reopen it, it's changed back to "Always". I still haven't tried reinstalling OS X or installing a fresh copy, cause I want this to be solved, not to accept the risk that it could happen again.

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Answer 7

Eric Root

Level 10

685,245 points

Oct 17, 2015 9:30 AM in response to Minesque

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Quit the application.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the application, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Answer 8

Minesque

Level 1

0 points

Oct 27, 2015 4:50 PM in response to Eric Root

Tried it. didn't work. it's like a curse!

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