Launcher icon still displayed when launcher in sleeping state and after quitting Minecraft

Ugh, guess I don't need to attach the crash report then. I don't care if this is intended behavior, it's wrong behavior for a Mac OS X application. At the very least, clicking the dock icon should bring the window back.

If the launcher wants to run in this hidden state, it should become a background process. There's a C API to do this:

ProcessSerialNumber psn = { 0, kCurrentProcess };

/* become a background process */
TransformProcessType(&psn, kProcessTransformToUIElementApplication);

/* become a foreground process again */
TransformProcessType(&psn, kProcessTransformToForegroundApplication);

I know Java has some kind of FFI, so I'm sure it can be done from there too.

I can confirm this issue for MCL 1.1.2 on Ubuntu 13.04 x64.
The Launcher window is hidden when Minecraft is started, but the MCL process remains.
On Ubuntu no proof of any process remains visible, like an icon anywhere.

Reopening because Eris is right, if it is going to stay in the dock it needs to respond to user input.

Thank you. Although honestly I'd rather that it became a background process (see my previous comment) when it's set to hide, so the dock icon goes away altogether. That way I don't have two "Minecraft" icons in my dock.

Can confirm. Two icons are confusing.

(I wish Minecraft had its original icon again, too!)

I'm seeing this behavior too on version 1.3.9 (Linux 3.13 with OpenJDK 1.7.0_51). The option "Close launcher when game starts" is enabled but the launcher window does only hide and is still keeping his process open.

@Sworddragon This ticket is not about running the launcher in background while running Minecraft, it's about having an additional icon at OS X

The icon remaining in the dock on OS X means that the process is still running. So it's probably the same issue on Linux.

The thing is that the process can be killed manually and the game runs just fine, so there doesn't seem to be a point in keeping the process alive. It should end on its own after launching the game (if the option "close launcher when game starts" in the profile is chosen).

> The thing is that the process can be killed manually and the game runs just fine, so there doesn't seem to be a point in keeping the process alive.

The same happens on Linux if I'm terminating the launcher process manually. The process should just exit after Minecraft started which should solve the icon issue on OS X and the process issue on all operating systems.

I'd like to quote dinnerbone again on this manor: https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/358372758616416256

In this case at least "Close launcher when game starts" should be renamed to "Hide launcher when game starts" to avoid confusion. But I would still prefer if the launcher would really close. If somebody wants to catch crashes he can set the option to "Keep the launcher open".

Why does Minecraft need a special process to catch crashes? I'm pretty sure OS X and probably Linux have APIs to handle that. If there really needs to be such a process it should be a separate one called "Minecraft helper" as per convention (under OS X anyway).

> Why does Minecraft need a special process to catch crashes? I'm pretty sure OS X and probably Linux have APIs to handle that.

The runtime environment of Java/OpenJDK should be able to catch all crashes related to programming errors and signals (at least on Linux as I don't know how other operating systems are handling this) except SIGKILL. Only if the runtime environment receives a SIGKILL this is normally not possible anymore. But such a situation caused by a crash is very rare and normally less important for Minecraft.

I second the request to rename the setting. It simply doesn't do what it currently says it will do.

p.s. Affects version 1.3.9

1.3.10

Same problem exists on Win7-64 for me, with Launcher 1.3.10

When my profile is set to "Close launcher when game starts" it simply becomes a background process and stays there indefinitely, regardless of whether the game is running, or has been closed.

Firstly, as others stated, if this is intended, then the description in the profile settings window is incorrect.
Second, there needs to be a way to ACTUALLY exit the launcher process when starting the game (a fourth setting in the dropdown menu would be nice). In my case, and seemingly in many other people's cases, this launcher process randomly eats my CPU and lags the game.
Third, because the process stays around indefinitely, reopening the launcher and playing the game actually creates yet ANOTHER javaw process, resulting in 3 or more javaw processes running simultaneously, which is somewhat asinine.

EDIT: Of course as soon as I say that I can't replicate the problem anymore. In my testing, while trying to get screenshots including the processes and PIDs, the extra javaw still stays open when the game is running but successfully exits once the game is stopped.

My suspicion is that the longer you play the game, the exponentially longer the process hangs around after the game is closed. I've seen the process SEEM to hang around forever when I exit the game after I've been playing for a long time, but in these short tests the process goes away quickly after exiting the game.

It's almost like the process is doing some kind of O(n^2) operation that depends on the amount of time played, or the amount of world data modified or something.

Yes, it's obvious that it is doing some sort of cleanup, which explains why it takes a variable amount of time to close itself. In my experience it's not related to how long you play the game.

Hmm, when you say cleanup, that makes me wonder if maybe its having a problem deleting or modifying files, perhaps issues with permissions, attributes, or concurrent usage or something, and thus is hung up.

Third, because the process stays around indefinitely, reopening the launcher and playing the game actually creates yet ANOTHER javaw process

On Mac it's the opposite. The launcher lingers around for up to half a minute or so (it does seem to be somewhat related to how long the game has been played) and during that time trying to open Minecraft.app has no effect whatsoever.

That is in addition to the fact that two Minecraft icons in the app-switcher are confusing - especially because the launcher uses the icon that MINECRAFT used to use. I don't know why they changed it...

Related: MCL-2334

On Mac it's the opposite. The launcher lingers around for up to half a minute or so (it does seem to be somewhat related to how long the game has been played) and during that time trying to open Minecraft.app has no effect whatsoever.

This is especially annoying, because the default behavior of the launcher means when a user closes minecraft, they cannot reopen minecraft for a few minutes.

Is in 1.4.2

Regarding the first part of this ticket: the launcher staying open when "Close launcher when game starts" is selected.
Definitely a part of 1.5.1 still. Of the 3 launcher options, this is the only one that doesn't do what it's supposed to. One way to fix is to simply rename the option to "Hide launcher when game starts"
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Regarding the "and after quitting Minecraft" part of this ticket, it still exists in 1.5.1
While I know very little about Java, if I had to guess, the delay that it takes for the Launcher to close itself after the client is shut down is probably just Java-related and not Mojang-code-related. Perhaps they could optimize some of it, but I have no idea.

It'd be cool to see a Mojang dev comment on this phenomenon and declare it "Won't Fix" or can't fix, or whatever.

«simply rename the option to "Hide launcher when game starts"» is not a solution. The behavior is obtrusive and confusing. There's no point in keeping the launcher open. The launcher should terminate once and for all.

Hey I agree, but since it's not my game to fix, I'm just pointing out that the above is a way for Mojang to relieve themselves of part of this ticket. Just look at MC-63556. I think marking that WAI is silly, but again, it's not my game.

I think we all have this issue. I don't like the title of the bug. The launcher is consuming a lot of RAM and even when Close launcher when game starts is selected, looking at processes shows the launcher is still running.

I posted the screen of the option that has no effect. Note also that that extra process doesn't close when Minecraft is closed either.

I just tried manually quitting the launcher after starting Minecraft (Close launcher when game starts was selected), and the game had no issues.

Having a conversation about this with Dinnerbone on twitter.
You can view this link to see the outcome.

https://twitter.com/theqmagnet/status/500614997043847168