Clicking on Dock icon does not bring window on top (OS X Lion)

Question

I am using OS X Lion and I have a very annoying problem with windows not showing up when I click on Dock icons.

It happens when I have some windows opened in one space but I am viewing another space at the moment.

For example, I have Mail and Skype on space #2 but I am on space #1. Note that all windows are not minimized.

I want to quickly switch to Mail. So I click on Mail icon in Dock, it switches the space to #2, menubar shows that active window is Mail but Mail window is actually below Skype window.

The strangest thing is that sometimes it works as expected showing the Mail on top. I can't see any logic here, it's absolutely unpredictable, thus annoying.

Does anyone experienced such problems? I wonder if it's a bug or correct behaviour. Is there any way to fix that?

Answer 1

This same problem happened to me. What I did was:

1. Go in to the launchpad, there should be a folder called "Other"

2. Click on Terminal, a window will pop up and will say

   Last login: Fri Apr 28 12:35:22 on ttys000
   Computer-Name:~ username$ 
   

3. Type in

   Killall Dock
   

Now that should fix it.

Answer 2

It could be your plist is corrupted. I believe the Spaces preferences are under com.apple.dock.plist. Back it up and delete it, then logoff. See if that helps.

edit:

1. Click on your user account in Finder (the little house icon).
2. Click Home/Library/Preferences.
3. There should be a file named com.apple.dock.plist. Drag to your desktop.
4. OSX should create a new plist file.
5. Logoff just in case, since this seems to be a weird troubleshooting issue I've never seen before.
6. If that didn't help, keep the old plist handy.

Answer 3

Obviously Mountain Lion is not so clever with the use of multiple displays on a temporal basis: I got my mail main window back by plugging the external display back and deselecting the "mirror displays" check box from display properties! There it was all the time, the mail window, somewhere outside the reach of screen.

I had had the same problem with Mail. No matter what, I could't get the main mail window to open and show my mailboxes, even though the dock icon showed the number of new mails and task bar was showing for Mail. I could only open new message screen. I had then noticed I had similar problems with other applications as well (e.g. Microsoft Office).

Answer 4

I was facing the same problem and the solution was very simple.

On the Settings I went to Mission Control and there were 4 options on the top. The second one is related to switch to the Space where the app is open.

And the third one is related to group the app windows by space.

Just marked them all and it fixed my problem!

Answer 5

You can control this somewhat by right-clicking on the dock icon and selecting options for which space the app is assigned to. To the best of my understanding,

With "None", the default:

• If the app has no open windows, it will open a window in the current space
• If the app has windows open in another space, it can't be brought to the front until you switch to the other space.

When the app is assigned to a specific space:

• If the app has no open windows then it will open a new window on that space.
• If the app has open windows on that other space, the app is brought forward but the window is not visible because it's on another space. (I assume the system preference to "switch to a space with open windows for the application" should take you there. However, in my case it doesn't.)

The last option, "All spaces" just defeats the purpose of having things on separate spaces to begin with.

I personally find the window management behaviour with spaces strange and inconsistent. IMHO, this part of Mac OS X needs work.

Answer 6

The problem is Skype I think. On my system when switching from a full screen app to a windowed app on the Desktop screen Skype briefly pops up and sometimes stays in front.

Very annoying, but probably Skype's fault by handling events inappropriately.

I use HazeOver, and that means that any window in the background will be shaded. It shows that input focus is on the Skype window... Wow. it isn't. Just tried it and the Finder window closes, but Skype has 'focus'.