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I've had a problem with the Notion desktop app where windows do not open, an invisible blue window "outline" is the only thing that is displayed. This problem has been around for months, it was not fixed by a restart or an uninstall / reinstall of Notion.

Today, this same identical problem spread to the Sublime app. Any ideas on how to proceed, troubleshoot, or resolve would be greatly appreciated. This is on Mojave 10.14.6 on a macbook pro.

Invisible Window / Blue Outline Only

p e p
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4 Answers4

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[This answer not final until this sentence removed]

As I'm sure you know, troubleshooting is a process of elimination and often requires patience.

I would start with testing your MBP in Safe Mode to see how it behaves both during Safe Mode and afterwards.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your MBP into Safe Mode:

  1. Fully shut down your MBP
  2. Restart your MBP
  3. Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
  4. Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
  5. Take a note of what happens (i.e. use your MBP long enough to establish if the problem reappears.)
  6. Exit Safe Mode by restarting your MBP as normal
  7. Test again to see if the problem reappears

Let me know how you went and we'll go from there.

Monomeeth
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  • Thank you very much for the suggestion... I actually ended up figuring this out just now before seeing your answer. Basically... I ended up finding that even though right clicking on Notion and selecting 'show all windows' ended up displaying the large blue window outline above, when I minimized out of that, I discovered that there was what appeared to be a single-pixel wide window that was extremely difficult to see on my desktop. I don't know why the blue outline was basically full screen. This is still a bug as all new windows were created as this single-pixel line. – p e p Nov 16 '19 at 05:10
  • Sublime had the same issue. I changed my background to a plain color, here's what the Sublime window looked like. For some reason, this window was "wider" although still only a couple pixels across. Thanks again for the suggestion, I definitely didn't have safe mode at the front of mind when trying to diagnose, so I'll be sure to keep that in mind in the future. Here's a gif showing the blue outline / tiny window. https://ezgif.com/video-to-gif/ezgif-6-fcb93d2c55ca.mp4 – p e p Nov 16 '19 at 05:12
  • NOTE: Bounty was awarded for the effort to help, this is a great suggestion. It's possible following the safe mode approach would have helped or solved the problem, but I was not able to follow that before finding the issue. – p e p Nov 16 '19 at 05:15
  • No worries, glad to help! :) Just so you know, even if booting into Safe Mode doesn't resolve an issue, it's a great diagnostic step as it helps eliminate some possibilities and therefore narrows down your troubleshooting steps. Re my answer, I would have updated it to include next steps, but those steps would have depended on the results of booting into Safe Mode. Apple provides some info via their Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac page. – Monomeeth Nov 16 '19 at 05:35
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I had a similar bug happen to me. A fix I found was to make the window fullscreen and then not fullscreen. Being that you likely can't see the fullscreen button, another option if you already know the window is maximized (not fullscreen), it to put open another window of the same size, layer the invisible window on top of it, and then move the mouse over to the green fullscreen button of the new window. Because they are the same size, pressing should trigger the fullscreen of the invisible window. Then it's just a matter of un-fullscreening it.

If you don't know the window size, you can always open mission control and drag the invisible window to somewhere there isn't an existing Space, and that will also fullscreen it.

shoe
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  • Sadly this isn't working for me. I am able to move them to a different desktop, but not into full screen by going between desktops, and I can't get them to close or maximise either. But it's a great suggestion and at least I can move them off the desktop I'm working on. – Joanna Bryson Dec 04 '21 at 15:38
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I had the same issue just now. I found that selecting the app does show the Notion toolbar right at the top of the screen though (where the Apple icon is), and using the Window menu there I could dock it to one side of the display/full screen it.

When I un-full-screened it with the arrow button it'd shrink down to a nigh-invisible tiny border on the bottom LHS, but having found where it was hiding I could now drag the window back onto the screen.

Andy Jones
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Changing my background color to one color worked. The window was a super small one pixel wide and maybe 10 pixels tall window. I was able to see the window after changing the background color.

Eetu Vierinen
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