When Mac OS X Exposé and screenshot capture stop working!

You may have experience this before, you are working away and suddenly Exposé, screen shot capture or hot corners stops working! It is an extremely frustrating bug I have experience for some time on Mac OS X, and up until recently only a reboot would remedy it. This is not something I have experienced on all Macs either, and unfortunately I don’t know what is causing it, but I have found a fix that’s made life a little easier.

I do a lot of screen captures using Command-Shift-4, and when it stops working while I have all kinds of files open, a reboot is a real productivity killer. I have tried killing the finder and dock using the terminal to no avail. One process that will fix this issue, although not ideal it’s better than a reboot.

Click the Apple icon in your top menu and select sleep. A few seconds later hit space bar; this seems to restore Exposé and screen capture functionality. This method should also fix disabled hot corners, although I have not tested it. Although putting your Mac into sleep mode and awaking it a few seconds later is much better than a reboot, a real fix would be much appreciated, so if you have a better solution or know what’s causing this I would love to hear about it in the comments.