MacOS Sierra Dock open app indicator missing

dockmacos

My Dock's open app indicator is suddenly missing. There is no more black dot at the bottom of my open app indicator.

What I did (but failed):

  • I am turning on my open app indicator in the system preference.
  • I have tried to remove ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

When I move the dock position to Left or Right though, the indicator appears. Only when at the bottom it doesn't appear. Anybody knows why?

I am on macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

Adding picture.

This really doesn't show my point so well. When I took the screenshot, the open app indicator is there. But it doesn't show up in my real desktop.
enter image description here

Best Answer

I've seen that happen when a system isn't logged out for months, so the first thing I would do is save work and then log out.

When you log back in, consider holding the shift key (or not having all the apps re-start) as well if a quick log out and log in don't clean things.

  • On rare occasion the saved application state gets messed up and a cleaner log in can help.
  • On other rare occasions it’s genie effect and software bugs - Visual bug in Dock after macOS Mojave installation
  • Be sure it’s not just a display failure as well. I would rule that in or out with some tests below:

Start with logging out and then restarting with no accounts logged in. Should you have something you can reproduce right after a restart, would be when I would get a sysdiagnose of the dock process and get a support ticket in to Apple.

Lastly, since you were removing preference files from under the preference database engine, consider trying a new user account to be sure things are good. In that case, you can consider moving files and settings over to a new account or know that it's just a user library preference corruption issue.

If you reproduce this on a new account, a backup and reinstall of the OS would be my next step. Hopefully you don't need to do an erase install, so start with an in-place reinstall where your user data isn't erased.

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