MacOS – Weird bug: Cmd+Tab sticks in Mavericks

macos

I am experiencing an odd bug that I haven't seen anywhere else.

When I use Cmd+Tab, it seems to stick on whatever application it lands on when I release Tab. It should open that application, but instead the app switcher remains active.

Then, I can either hit Enter and it will open that app (like it should have when I released Tab), or I can press Tab once more and it will move to the next app then open that app.

This happen every single time, UNLESS I perform the keystroke VERY quickly.

I submitted a bug report to Apple a couple months ago, and (to no surprise) I haven't heard back.

This has happened since I upgraded to Mavericks on release day.

I have tried various third-party applications, but Apple has made it impossible now to relinquish the keystroke from the system.

I'm at my wit's end, any ideas would be appreciated.

Best Answer

The command ⌘+tab ⇥ app switcher lives in Dock.app, as many other things do, like the desktop background, menu bar, Spaces, Exposé, and most obviously the Dock. So to fix this the easiest way would be to simply clear the Dock preferences using this Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) command:

defaults delete com.apple.dock; killall Dock

For anyone not familiar with the defaults command, it is used to set or remove preferences, most of the time hidden ones. This line simply uses the defaults command to delete the preferences associated with the bundle ID of com.apple.dock, which is just a unique identifier for Dock.app. If you want to be a little more technical and see if you can salvage your Dock's app order and Stacks, try running

defaults read com.apple.dock

and looking for anything suspicious or corrupted, and then use defaults delete on the offending key.

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