Dock Icon won't disappear after quitting application

Question

Dock Icon won't disappear after quitting application

A few gaming application icons refuse to disappear from the dock after I quit an application, so far only games seem to cause the problem.

Force quit does nothing, and the applications still appears in the "force quit application" window however they do not appear in the activity monitor.

After the launching and quitting the application, and once the icon is 'stuck' in the dock, the application often does not load when I try to open it. It also does not crash, it just does nothing when I double click it.

Nothing happens when I click the icon in the dock once it has gotten 'stuck' there.

I have tried typing "killall Dock" into terminal to reset the dock but that doesn't change the problem.

A reset of the computer does make the icons disappear but once I open the application again they get stuck again.

Like I said it only seems to happen with game applications and not all applications, but it happens with several different games, although not all games.

I want to know why the icons are getting stuck, and why it sometimes causes the application to refuse to launch after it has gotten stuck.

Appreciate any help!

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Aug 19, 2016 10:43 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Aug 19, 2016 8:27 PM in response to postendustrial

You need to look in your user Library/Applications Support/Dock for the .db. Use 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, 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. Learned from leonie.

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