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I use spaces with 10.9. I run a few applications in full screen mode. While focused on an application in full screen mode every minute or so I switched back to the first space. This happens with no input on my behalf.

I suspected it was an application in the background taking focus. I shut down all applications that do this and have also disabled space switching on application focus. After a reset the issue persists.

I noticed that the tool bar glitches out after the switch happens. It feels like a bug because when the application is not in full screen mode the icons on my desktop will disappear for a split second and then reappear. This seems to be happening with the same frequency as the space switching issue. Has anyone en-counted this? Is there a fix? It's driving me nuts!

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  • This article maybe of interest maketecheasier.com/…
    – Simon
    Nov 19, 2013 at 21:06
  • I had the same issue happening to me, but I had Google Drive uninstalled already (pre-mavericks upgrade). But just in case someone else is in the same situation as I am, this only seemed to be happening to me while Microsoft Word 2011 was open.
    – BrDaHa
    Dec 8, 2013 at 18:38
  • @BrDaHa: I have the same issue as you have. The switching is caused by Word for me. Did you find any way to solve it? It is very irritating... I even did a clean reinstall of OSX yesterday, to no avail.
    – koenlek
    Dec 10, 2013 at 16:55
  • As this is solved, I can't add an answer so a comment will do. My issue was caused by a dialog box in screen #3 of outlook in screen #1. Find the screen that triggers the switch and look for it there. But to do that, you need to move the offending app to it first.
    – Roy Falk
    Sep 17, 2020 at 5:57

1 Answer 1

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This seems to be Google Drive-related. The behavior has stopped after quitting Google Drive app (in the taskbar).

If you have the same issue, please also report to the Google Support Forums so Google will know the extent of the issue: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/drive/report-a-problem/sv-ZC0ws3Mw

This is now fixed - https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/drive/report-a-problem/kqdqmoMWtk8

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    Google Drive may cause this, but is not the only one causing this. I do not have Google Drive and suffer from this all day long. My issue seems to be Java related as it happens when I build projects using Maven with Java either in my IDE or command line. If either IDE or iterm2 is full screened it will keep jumping back to the first desktop screen.
    – flurdy
    Nov 24, 2014 at 11:05
  • It seems to me that apple should build a more robust dashboard. I have the same problem with and without google drive app. This is still happening. I am using macOS High Sierra 10.13.3
    – Pablo Reyes
    Apr 20, 2018 at 19:01
  • This happens to me at OSX 12.2.1 and i don't have google drive installed at all
    – ddavidad
    Mar 23, 2022 at 14:00

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