dock preference not saving

Thanks a lot Linc, after almost 3 years your Step 2 provided a solution to a problem I had recently. At every machine restart, account setup was starting, Siri was disabled and present in the Dock (despite I always removed it from there) and "Optimizing your Mac" message appeared.

By going in recovery mode and starting the reset password procedure (although its a bit changed nowadays) and than just canceling it and restart has done it. Everything is back to normal.

Cheers!

Alin

Back up all data.

In the Finder, hold down the option key and select

Go ▹ Library

from the menu bar. From the Library folder, move the following item to the Trash, if it exists:

Application Support/Dock

and move the following items to the Desktop (again, some may not exist):

Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.dock.*.plist

Preferences/com.apple.dock.db

Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

Here, * stands for a long string of letters and numbers.

Next, triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

open $TMPDIR../C

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. A folder should open. Inside it there may be a file named "com.apple.dock.iconcache". If there is, drag it to the Trash.

Log out, log back in, and test. If you still have the issue, put the items on the Desktop back where they came from and post again. Otherwise, delete the items.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.

Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

ls -@Oaen L*/{P*/com.apple.d,A*/D}ock* | pbcopy

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.

The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.

The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

Some of your user files (not system files) have incorrect permissions or are locked. This procedure will unlock those files and reset their ownership, permissions, and access controls to the default. If you've intentionally set special values for those attributes, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it, but you do need to follow the instructions below.

Back up all data.

Step 1

If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.

Enter the following command in the Terminal window in the same way as before (triple-click, copy, and paste):

sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags nouchg,nouappnd {} + -exec chown $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -N {} + -type d -exec chmod +x {} + 2>&-

This time you'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.

The command may take several minutes to run, depending on how many files you have. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2 (optional)

Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1, if you prefer not to take it, or if it doesn't solve the problem.

Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select

Utilities ▹ Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. In that window, type this:

res

Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword

Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button

Select

 ▹ Restart

from the menu bar.

Mine too! I'll set it up the way I want it then when I shut it down and turn it back on everything is reset