Toast 8.0.3 Breaks Apple's Dock in Leopard

[tdunst]

I am running Mac OS 10.5.1 (a.k.a. Leopard) with Toast 8.03 on a dual 2Ghz G5 tower with 3.5 GB of RAM. Every single time that I try to encode a movie transfered in from Eye TV, the Toast application corrupts Apple's Dock application. Once the Toast application goes into encoding mode, newly launched applications do not show that they are loaded in the Dock (in other words, the applications icon does NOT appear in the dock, nor does the little white 'Im loaded' light appear underneath applications whose icons may be 'pinned' to your Dock application). In addition, while the Toast application is encoding, if you quit a running application, the Dock will not update the status of the applications associated icon in the Dock. This problem makes it impossible to tell which application are loaded or not loaded by the operating system. It also makes it very difficult to switch to another application as all applications affected by this problem also do not show up in the application switching pop-up window provided by the Dock application.

 

This problem appears to persist even after the Toast application has completed encoding and burning the DVD. The only way that I have found to fix this issue is to log out of my Leopard account, and then log back in (which of course quits all of my running applications).

 

Is anyone else having the same problem? Any suggestions as to what I could do to fix this?

[Atlantic]

There is an Apple knowledgebase article about this, though it talks about the Finder not fully loading. People have said that this will fix the issue of icons disappearing from their dock.

 

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307000

 

It fixed my MacMini running Toast 8 when I carried this operation out when the icons were intermittently disappearing from the dock (which only a restart would help otherwise).

[tdunst]

As an update, this would appear to have more to do with the use of Apples Spaces application than either Toast or the Dock. Near as I can tell, modal dialogs (like the one Toast displays when it is encoding or burning a disk) wreak havoc on the Dock while Spaces is active and produce the symptoms that I have described in the original post. I haven't done extensive testing of this, but I don't think it happens when Spaces is disabled. I would further assume that any application that displays a modal dialog would produce similar results until Apple fixes the Spaces application.

 

I have also read a number of other blogs that suggest that the Spaces application has many other flaws as well. I have disabled mine until Apple can produce a fix.

[Allan Marcus]

The issue seems to be mostly resolved in 10.5.2. The dock uses 6.3% when burning a disc.

 

Would be nice if Roxio may this an option to update progress in the rock.

[cheerie]

Help! I've downloaded the 8.0.3 update but I can't see how to install it. The text file is a bunch of garbled text. I'm on a MacBook with Leopard. I downloaded the Toast_Ti_803_166_Update Folder, which contains the _MacOSX folder. Do I put the _MacOSX folder in applications? the folder appears to be empty?!

What kind of update is this? They usuall have no problem. cheerie

[Powdered Toast Man]

I too have had this problem, under 10.5/Toast 8 and 10.5.1/Toast 8.0.3.

 

Titanium PowerBook G4 1GHz 1GB/160GB

[jmeyer]

I also experience this problem, but only only Mini (G4). On a dual G5, I don't see the problem. Both run 10.5.1, and both have Spaces enabled but unused.

[Orcadian]

You're right tdunst, I have the same problem in my iMac G5, but it too goes away if I disable Spaces. EyeTV doesn't behave well in Spaces either, with drawers popping up in the wrong Space, so it looks like an Apple problem.

[tsantee]

Help! I've downloaded the 8.0.3 update but I can't see how to install it. The text file is a bunch of garbled text. I'm on a MacBook with Leopard. I downloaded the Toast_Ti_803_166_Update Folder, which contains the _MacOSX folder. Do I put the _MacOSX folder in applications? the folder appears to be empty?!

What kind of update is this? They usuall have no problem. cheerie

Your description of what was downloaded isn't what it should be. The file that is downloaded is "Toast Titanium 8.0.3 Update.dmg". It may have a .zip at the end of the download itself and becomes the .dmg after being unzipped.

[Ilgaz]

I didn't figure how serious this issue could be until exporting a EyeTV mpeg2 native recording to toast 8.03

 

As it multiplexes mpeg 2, it uses 170% of CPU, good, at least multi processor used. As it is a very fast happening operation, I have checked the Dock CPU usage. 60% !

 

I understand the original posters frustration now. I got 4 cores (quad G5) to spare but it isn't the case on every mac. So, if dock uses 60% CPU, in some situations/configs, there could be only 40% left for Toast and OS overhead.

 

Toast developers should really investigate the issue. Easy way to invoke it is doing a very fast operation like mpeg2 multiplexing. Just watch Dock CPU usage while a fast progress bar happens.

 

 

[Atlantic]

Try this discussion on Apple's pages, too:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6114910

[Allan Marcus]

Removing the Toast icon from the Dock seems to solve this problem. See this thread for instructions.

 

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?sto...010701191518268

[JustinHorne]

Not that I don't beleive you, but I tested it 1) with Spaces 2) while encoding 3) opening and closing apps which I don't keep in the dock, and had no problems at all.

[tsantee]

I'm guessing this has something to do with icon animation. Anyone know how to disable it?

 

In Toast preferences uncheck the box next to "Enable enhanced window animations."

[Robert_SK]

Hi, I have 10.5.1 running but am unable to launch Toast 8.0.3. I have read all the above but can't decide what is stopping Toast from launching. Can anyone help?

regards, Robert.

[Morrell]

I'm running on an Intel iMac and have the same problems with the dock. I disabled spaces which reduced the problem but did not eliminate it. I didn't realize it was connected to toast until I ran activity monitor and found that, while Toast is encoding, the dock is taking 30%-40% of the CPU cycles (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.33 GHz).

 

I'm guessing this has something to do with icon animation. Anyone know how to disable it?

 

As to failure to update app's (when they launch, quit, etc), I also have to log out to fix this.

[tsantee]

Hi, I have 10.5.1 running but am unable to launch Toast 8.0.3. I have read all the above but can't decide what is stopping Toast from launching. Can anyone help?

regards, Robert.

Have you checked your QuickTime Plugins folder in your User Library to be certain there is no Xvid codec present? Toast won't work if it is there.

[Mississauga]

Toast's dockling uses an unacceptable amount of CPU cycles, besides causing the already noted dock issue. I've seen the dockling use up to 18% cpu.

 

iMac C2D, OS 10.5.1, Toast 8.0.3

[charlesH]

In Toast preferences uncheck the box next to "Enable enhanced window animations."

 

I hate to be a wet blanket, but I'm running 8.0.3 on 10.5.1, have never used spaces, and have never had the "Enable enhanced window animations" box checked, and I'm having the same problem.

 

I had thought the problem had something to do with the amount of CPU cycles that Toast used, because some things that I had clicked finally opened after Toast finished what it was doing.

 

Also, has anyone noticed what appears to be a small, fairly wide window behind the Toast window. I only see it on closing Toast, as it closes also.

[sjkrox]

Apparently this problem is still unresolved? Still running Tiger here but am keeping an eye out for any issues I might encounter with Leopard since I'm intending to upgrade relatively soon. Thanks.

[Edison517]

Actually, I have to disagree with 10.5.2 fixing the problem, at least for me...I've got a macbook 2.0 running 10.5.2 with Spaces enabled and Toast 8.0.3, and my Dock still has to be force quit to update the icons properly...I have yet to try turning off the enhancements, but I'll try that next.

 

Hope there's a fix coming!

[Mississauga]

I've reverted to using Toast 7.1.3 at slower write speeds and all my issues have disappeared.

[Paul Hagstrom]

Interesting. I've had this problem too, though I never thought to blame Toast for it. However, it is happening on the machine I run Toast on, and has never happened on my other machine.

 

As to failure to update app's (when they launch, quit, etc), I also have to log out to fix this.

If you find that your applications are not showing up properly in the Dock or in the Application Switcher (Cmd-tab), then you can open the Terminal and type this on the command line (making it unnecessary to log out):

 

killall Dock

This will restart the Dock, with all of the applications properly registered and displayed until the next corruption occurs. I find myself using this command a lot, I hope this gets fixed if it is a Toast problem (and it sounds like it probably is).

[Morrell]

In Toast preferences uncheck the box next to "Enable enhanced window animations."

 

I appreciate the suggestion, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the progress bar on the dock icon. It was already off, so on the off chance that the setting was corrupted / being ignored, I turned on, quit toast & relaunched, turned it off and burned again - still animates.

[tsantee]

Just to let you know I'm having the same problem with the dock on my MacBook Pro running 10.5.1 and I haven't opened Toast yet on that Mac, although I have used Popcorn 3.0.2. I didn't notice that one followed the other but maybe it did.

[Atlantic]

It happens on my Mac Mini under Leopard 10.5.1 and now I just run Activity Monitor each time I get the issue, then quit Dock from there (regular quit, you don't have to force quit). It restarts itself and everything is fine until the next time it gets mucked up.