How can I unfreeze a widget on the Dashboard on my iMac?

It has happened to me several times and here is where I always found help fixing it.

I will fiddle with your link later, @Pachyderm.

I just found this on one of the forums and tried it, to no avail. When I reset everything from the default, all the widgets but the stock price one, are working fine.

“Hi that’s right, you’re using Mountain Lion, which hides certain system files.

When you open your computer, you’ll see a series of pulldown menus: Apple, Finder, Edit, View, Go, etc. When you reach “Go,” pull down the menu, and watch when you depress the “Option” key. The “Library” file appears. Use this “Library” folder, then proceed to Preferences, and delete the com.apple.dashboard.plist file.”

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room: I registered for the forum you posted and there seems to be a lot of vague info about the recent demise of the Dashboard feature. I am finding the site itself difficult to navigate, also.

Waiting for JP, the miracle worker….

There is a bit of a easier way that could fix this.

Open Applications/Utilities/Terminal

Enter rm ~/Library/Preferences/widget-com.apple.widget.stocks.plist

Hit Return.

Enter killall Dock

Hit Return.

It should look like this.

That should hopefully clear up the problem.

Thanks, John. I will try later when I am able to focus. It is interesting how annoyance can create brain fog.

It should do the the trick. I tested it. Note that you will have to re-enter any ticker symbols you had entered.

The widget shows up; I can re-enter the ticker symbols, but there is no info being fed to them.

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/05/31/apples-dashboard-widget-download-site-for-os-x-broken/

It works for me. Maybe the widget itself if busted. I uploaded a copy of mine here that works for me. Once you unzip it you should be able to double click and it will ask you if you want to install it. Hopefully it will overwrite the current one. You might have to restart or killall Dock in the Terminal for it to see the new one.

@johnpowell: 1) When I followed your amazingly clear advice ending with Enter killall Dock
Hit Return, a new stock widget appeared with several defaults…Dow, Nasdaq, Apple, Google and the closing figures being fed in on the right

2) However, when I edited and typed in several of my stocks, the last $ costs disappeared again and theright-hand side reverted to blank green windows.

3) When I tried to upload a copy from your link in your answer above, I got an error message that said,

“Stocks-1.wdgt” can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer. Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the Mac App Store and identified developers.”

I am not sure that this issue is worth much more of your time and mine because I can get the information from my brokerage account with only a little more effort…logging in with PW and user name and the list of stocks I am interested comes up.

I believe that Mac is planning to come out with yet another OS (Maverick?) soon. Perhaps the Dashboard widgets are a thing of the past.

Should I let this drop? In any case, thank you very much for the clarity and accuracy of your help.

John, I just found this http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/fidelitymarketmonitorwidget.html, but since I have an account at Fidelity that I can easily bring up, the widget now seems redundant. It was simply a convenient way to have a peek at a bit of the market the lazy man’s way.

And this just in from an Apple forum; https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5218936

“That widget doesn’t work. It’s a known issue.”