Red, Yellow, Green

The red button (close) has been acting like the yellow button (minimize) sporadically on my computer. So, if I'm ready to close out of Mail or Firefox, I click the close button, and rather than closing the window, it minimizes it to the right-hand side of the Dock. Any helps?

Could be some flakiness in your graphics drivers or your mouse drivers. First thing to do is create a new user on your computer (do not import anything from anywhere... make a new virgin account and leave it at default settings). Log into that new user and see if you continue to have issues. Report back on what you are experiencing on the new user and we can more easily troubleshoot from there.

Ok, I created a test account and tried to duplicate the problem. It didn't carry over into test. The two main apps that do it are Firefox and Mail, so I tested them pretty carefully. Incidentally, when I switched back to my main account, I checked my mail and when I tried to close mail, it minimized again...so I know the problem still persists on this account.

Speaking of mouse drivers, I did just get a Microsoft cordless notebook laser mouse and downloaded SteerMouse at the recommendation of Microsoft's tech support rep. The problem may actually have started right after that, come to think of it. I'm not certain, but it's definitely possible.

JamesLJ said:

Ok, I created a test account and tried to duplicate the problem. It didn't carry over into test. The two main apps that do it are Firefox and Mail, so I tested them pretty carefully. Incidentally, when I switched back to my main account, I checked my mail and when I tried to close mail, it minimized again...so I know the problem still persists on this account.

Speaking of mouse drivers, I did just get a Microsoft cordless notebook laser mouse and downloaded SteerMouse at the recommendation of Microsoft's tech support rep. The problem may actually have started right after that, come to think of it. I'm not certain, but it's definitely possible.

Click to expand...

Alrighty. For now, disable SteerMouse and see what happens.

Alright, steermouse is gone. Now I'm going to observe for the day or weekend and see if it worked. If it did, I'll just go without a fourth button until microsoft updates their drivers. Thanks.

JamesLJ said:

Alright, steermouse is gone. Now I'm going to observe for the day or weekend and see if it worked. If it did, I'll just go without a fourth button until microsoft updates their drivers. Thanks.

Click to expand...

If it is SteerMouse, then you could try USB Overdrive in its place. Or... if you have installed any MS mouse software/drivers, get rid of that. I'm using an MS BT mouse with Steermouse myself... no such issues. If you have MS' software installed also, then maybe it's conflicting with SM. In fact, that likely is the problem... you have 2 different drivers fighting to control the same device.

Sunday afternoon -- No Steermouse or Microsoft drivers installed, but the problem persists. The Microsoft drivers that came with the mouse are incompatible with OS X 10.5, which is the reason I had to download Steermouse. I also tried it with USB Overdrive installed, and the problem persisted. Now I'm just using Mac OS X's built-in mouse driver...and it just happened again, so I guess it's probably not the mouse. Any other ideas?

Alrighty. Since we know this isn't a problem on a fresh alternate account, then the problem is rooted somewhere in your user Library, or with something you are running in the background.

First thing to try is disabling everything that loads on startup.
Go to System Preferences > Accounts
Select your user and remove everything under login items. Then reboot and see what happens.

If the problem persists, then we need to figure out what it is in your user Library that is screwing things up. Go to ~/Library/Preferences and, after making backup copies, try deleting com.apple.finder.plist and com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist. Then reboot and see what happens.

If the problem persists, then the only other thing to try right now is make a backup copy of the entire Preferences folder, then delete the original and reboot. This will reset your system and all apps to act as if freshly installed, but it will settle once and for all if the problem is a pref file, hidden or not.

Ok, after a week of fiddling with the problem, I've determined that the cause is most likely with Firefox. At first I thought it may have been Stickies, as I put that in my startups at some point in the last few days, but it's not opening. The problem just happened with iWeb, which I had never used before today, and the only other app open was FireFox. So that's most likely it. It's not my mouse driver, since I deleted it earlier and the problem persisted. Any advice?

JamesLJ said:

Ok, after a week of fiddling with the problem, I've determined that the cause is most likely with Firefox. At first I thought it may have been Stickies, as I put that in my startups at some point in the last few days, but it's not opening. The problem just happened with iWeb, which I had never used before today, and the only other app open was FireFox. So that's most likely it. It's not my mouse driver, since I deleted it earlier and the problem persisted. Any advice?

Click to expand...

Strange that it might be Firefox. For now, just use Safari instead. Make sure Firefox that isn't in your startup items. Better yet, just delete the Firefox app... you can always re-download it (and if you do, be sure the get the latest version appropriate for the version of OS X you are running).