Looping Console Error on Mac OS X 10.6.4

Question

My Console error log is filled with tens of thousands of these two similar error messages over and over. I can't figure out what these mean or how to fix the error, and I feel like it might be part of the reason Finder has been acting strangely for the past month or so.

9/20/10 2:46:47 PM com.apple.Dock.agent[8162] Mon Sep 20 14:46:47 James-Simpsons-MBP-4.local Dock[8162] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSSetWindowTransformAtPlacement: Failed 9/20/10 2:46:47 PM com.apple.Dock.agent[8162] Mon Sep 20 14:46:47 James-Simpsons-MBP-4.local Dock[8162] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSSetWindowTransformsAtPlacement: Failed

Answer 1

Your Dock (or perhaps one of your Dashboard widgets, since Dashboard widgets are child processes of the Dock) is having problems with some graphics calls.

1. Try closing your third-party Dashboard widgets and see if the log messages stop.
2. Try closing your Apple-provided Dashboard widgets and see if the log messages stop.
3. Try removing things from your Dock, especially third-party things that update their icon or things like "unread message count" badges.

4. Try moving aside your Dock settings, and then kill the Dock, and see if the log messages stop.

   Note: This will "lose" your Dock settings, including which apps you have where in the dock, until/unless you move those files back.

   mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.* ~/Desktop/
killall Dock