Problems with the Dock

RobbieSnr wrote:

Since I've upgraded to macOS Monterey 12.5 I'm having problems with the Dock. I have it set to appear at the foot of the screen and to automatically hide and show but it's not appearing at all if I hover the mouse over the bottom of the screen or use Option-Command-D. I did initially have to show it at the right of the screen so I could use uBar at the foot, and then it partially appeared at the right and I couldn't change it at all. I've tried restarting up in Safe mode to see if this would clear the problem but to no avail. I'm no longer using uBar.

Have you rebooted more than once since you upgraded the macOS to 12.5....(?)

if so, then try a safeboot to sort anomalies like yous...

SafeBoot How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Takes a bit longer to get to the login screen, does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache, font cache, etc.

No need to login past the Safeboot screen— Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

RobbieSnr wrote:

Yes I've rebooted several times, and at least 2 of these were a safe boot. I'm quite familiar with safe boots and always check that I've done one, from System Report/Software. Despite these restarts I still don't have the Dock despite System Preferences/Dock & Menu Bar showing that it should be in the Bottom of the screen.

I would verify to is not stuck left or right side.

You can relaunch the Dock on the fly, and compare your results, from the Terminal .app copy & paste:

killall Dock

RobbieSnr wrote:

Well I thought I had this sorted. I'd reinstalled Monterey, uninstalled most of my 3rd party apps, stopped the other of these apps from loading and opened up in Safe Mode.

The Dock appeared at the bottom of the screen but I couldn't hide it - perhaps that was intentional. When I opened up in normal mode it wasn't there. I saw I still had four startup items set in Users & Group Preferences so I removed these to see if it would make any difference but it didn't. However when I tried opening up again in Safe Mode the Dock had disappeared!

Is there a possibility that my Mac has been affected by a virus? I did have an incident several months ago, before the Monterey upgrade, when I could have picked up one although a virus scan at the time didn't show anything.

Virus scan... this sounds like an issue right there.

Uninstall any and all third party Antivirus, Cleaners, Optimizers, VPN, speeder uppers....

all known to cause issues on the macOS

Virus no.

This is highly unique situation...

It begs the question—was this a virgin install of MacOS testing before you moved your User files back in...?

Third party interferences sound more likely.

You can get a good look at your System config. and reveal conflicts or issues, you can download/run this trusted utility https://etrecheck.com  

If you need help interpreting the report you can post it here in its entirety in the "Additional Text" box in the editing toolbar below, in your reply.

RobbieSnr wrote:

I had checked for a virus using CleanMyMac

CleanMyMac right up there with one of the worst.

Look for an official uninstaller—remove it and compare your results.

 if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/Updates/uninstaller

Uninstall any and all third party Antivirus, Cleaners, Optimizers, VPN, speeder uppers....

all known to cause issues on the macOS

RobbieSnr wrote:

I did subscribe to Setapp and I've removed all of the apps that I'd installed from there, including CleanMyMac X. I did then find that the Dock reappeared but try as i might I couldn't get it to hide. I did run EtreCheck and it still showed that latter app as an anti virus program - I've not been able to find out why. I see though that EtreCheck shows

<EtreCheck Report.log>

a CleanMyMac setappUpdater

You had earlier said I should try killall Dock in the terminal but this still hadn't changed the situation - I think I omitted the semi-colon at the end though.

However someone has suggested that I should try "defaults delete com.apple.dock; killall Dock" and this did the trick - the Dock is still showing and I can now hide it.

It seems therefore that my problem is sorted.

Good computing RobbieSnr !

In good faith I could not recommend your "https://setapp.com/" or the apps that it packages...