[zanyterp]

has anyone else seen their dock not show the open application indicator (sorry, i'm not sure the official name for the blue dot in leopard or the black triangle in tiger) for an open application? which also seems to cause the app not to show in the cmb-tab window switch shortcut (which makes sense if the OS doesn't think the application is open). Right now Safari is being used to type my post, but it isn't open according to my dock or the application-switcher-key.

could this be a simple thing that i just need to give in and do a reboot? or could it be a symptom of something else wrong? i'm running 10.5.5 on a macbook.

thanks!
nick

[Big Mac]

Nope, never seen it. Try the Combo updater, and if that doesn't help do an Archive and Install reinstall.

[JKT]

You don't need to reboot, you just need to quit and re-launch the Dock (use Activity Monitor in the utilities folder to do so).

The Dock process actually controls quite a bit more than just the Dock - e.g. it is also responsible for command-Tab switcher and Dashboard, so it is possible that a crash in a Widget might have implications for the Dock.

[zanyterp]

Thanks, JKT! That worked marvelously.

[timmmer]

I was having the same problem with the indicator for running programs not lighting up, plus command-Tab not switching between applications, plus the Expose function keys not reponding. Plus, logging out or shutting down was a nightmare (had to use the power switch on the computer to restart).

Using the Activity Monitor to quit the Dock process worked, but the dock did not automatically relaunch. Instead, the dock simply did not appear, Spaces was disabled, and restarting required using the power switch on the computer. Once I did restart *after* using Activity Monitor to quit the Dock process, however, everything is now working beautifully! (Before this fix, restarting the computer had had no effect.)

So, this is a wonderful fix! Just don't expect the Dock to automatically relaunch after you quit it.