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Big Sur 11.2.2 Dock Hangs on Shutdown and Restart (Intel)
- Thread starter dspdoc
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Let me rephrase my question because I don’t think people are understanding what I am asking. I apologize if the way I worded it wasn’t clear. I can’t be the only person noticing this.
Does anyone else have the issue in Big Sur that when you either shutdown or reboot the machine that the dock doesn’t drop down off the screen completely like it is supposed to. It starts to drop down off the screen but freezes about halfway down. I realize it is just an eyesore, but it’s annoying and I’ve seen this issue come and go with many OS versions. Why can’t Apple get it fixed once and for all and why does it keep coming back with OS updates? I’m on a new iMac with a brand new clean install of the latest version of Big Sur and nothing plugged into the machine.
Does anyone else have the issue in Big Sur that when you either shutdown or reboot the machine that the dock doesn’t drop down off the screen completely like it is supposed to. It starts to drop down off the screen but freezes about halfway down. I realize it is just an eyesore, but it’s annoying and I’ve seen this issue come and go with many OS versions. Why can’t Apple get it fixed once and for all and why does it keep coming back with OS updates? I’m on a new iMac with a brand new clean install of the latest version of Big Sur and nothing plugged into the machine.
I care. It’s aesthetically unpleasant. Kind of like your response.
I mean really? It doesn’t cause issues and with faster computer these days the process shuts down faster, why wait for the dock to drop? When kill signal is faster and it reboots .
if you that picky call apple see what they say
When spending a lot of money with a company I am indeed “that picky”. I have reported the issue to Apple.
This will never be fixed, this is also not really a bug.
When the Dock is closed "gracefully" it drops off screen at a speed consistent with the autohide-delay. This is the same speed the Dock moves at if you have the Dock set to automatically hide and show.
When you shut off the computer it tells each process to quit. When the Dock is quit it beings to animate. If you have a fast computer the process are able to save state and terminate so fast that since the the Dock and loginwindow are probably the last two user facing process quit the computer is likely already "shut down" before the Dock can finish it's animation, thus you see it stuck mid animation on screen.
The reason this wont show on all computers is because
1. On slower systems the time to save state and kill the last few process probably gives enough time for the Dock to animate out
2. If the user has altered the Dock autohide speed this issue may not persist depending on what they set it to
3. Users with the Dock auto-hiding would never even see this to begin with
4. This is an extreme nitpick that doesn't need fixing so if there have been changes to the Dock or system shutdown code that have effected this it's likely no-one at Apple cares.
My guess is you may be able fix this yourself with the terminal command:
As at that point the Dock should show and hide instantly (at least to human perception). I've also heard that setting just 0.0 doesn't always work and that you may need to use some long float that's close to zero
Regardless of whether or not my fix works works for you I would say don't expect a fix from Apple ever. This issue also has nothing to do with the macOS version or computer architecture.
When the Dock is closed "gracefully" it drops off screen at a speed consistent with the autohide-delay. This is the same speed the Dock moves at if you have the Dock set to automatically hide and show.
When you shut off the computer it tells each process to quit. When the Dock is quit it beings to animate. If you have a fast computer the process are able to save state and terminate so fast that since the the Dock and loginwindow are probably the last two user facing process quit the computer is likely already "shut down" before the Dock can finish it's animation, thus you see it stuck mid animation on screen.
The reason this wont show on all computers is because
1. On slower systems the time to save state and kill the last few process probably gives enough time for the Dock to animate out
2. If the user has altered the Dock autohide speed this issue may not persist depending on what they set it to
3. Users with the Dock auto-hiding would never even see this to begin with
4. This is an extreme nitpick that doesn't need fixing so if there have been changes to the Dock or system shutdown code that have effected this it's likely no-one at Apple cares.
My guess is you may be able fix this yourself with the terminal command:
Bash:
defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0.0
killall DockAs at that point the Dock should show and hide instantly (at least to human perception). I've also heard that setting just 0.0 doesn't always work and that you may need to use some long float that's close to zero
Regardless of whether or not my fix works works for you I would say don't expect a fix from Apple ever. This issue also has nothing to do with the macOS version or computer architecture.
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Thanks for your response. My question though is why does this come and go from version to version of macOS? My top spec 2020 iMac never behaved that way under Catalina at all. Does this mean the machine is running faster in Big Sur now, and based off your reasoning shutting down quicker than the dock can duck off the screen?
It doesn't mean anything.
1. My theories are just theories. Although I do have extensive knowledge about the Dock (I make cDock).
2. We're likely talking about literal fractions of a second here
3. How fast your computer can shut down has very little correlation to using the computer
4. There are many factors that could impact the shutdown process
Just apply the terminal command I posted, hope it works and move on with your life. A micro second screen "glitch" when shutting down your computer is beyond first world problems and has no signifiers about the system.
Literal random chance. Too many factors at play to answer that question. Your question is the same as asking "How come some people get cancer as they get older and others don't?". That question can't be answered. There are many reasons someone could be more likely or not to get cancer but you couldn't tell for sure without tests and detailed info about the person and even then it could come down to just bad luck.
I applied the following and now the dock drops off before shutdown:
Bash:
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 0;killall Dock
Any idea of what this would be in zsh? Since you can't delete a post I used what is listed above and it worked on my refurbished 2019 16" MacBook Pro with Monterey loaded.
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