Menu Bar Items Disappear!!

Sometimes, really most of the time, I restart my computer and log back in the items like Volume, Airport, Battery, Time, even Spotlight seem to turn themselves off. It is never the same ones, and last time I went to turn back on the Bluetooth item inside of System Prefs, and the BUTTON WAS CLICKED TO BE ON! What is the problem here? Is there sometime wrong with my computer or is it a bug everyone seems to have?

Ok. I did all that, still nothing. At first I thought it wasn't specific to iChat because the airport icon had disappeared earlier, but it still wouldn't come up even under a different admin user!
My boyfriend fixed the airport icon when it disappeared earlier. He can't totally remember what he did, but he said that he opened Internet Connect.
As far as I can see, there are no options in iChat preferences whether or not to see the icon on the menu bar. Plus, it just disappeared one day without me changing any settings. Also, now that I think about it, that little American flag that comes up when you have international settings has also disappeared.
I (clearly) have no idea what's going on.
**Addendum: I just looked at iChat prefs again and there is an option to show the icon in the menu bar and it was unchecked! So that problem's solved, although I never unchecked it in the first place (maybe this happened while moving around all those .plists). And the mystery still remains about why the American flag disappeared.

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Menu bar items disappeared

all the menu bar items in the upper right corner disappeared...spotlight, date/time, network status, bluetooth, everything. When I open system preferences, and for example look at date and time, the option to display it is not checked, so I enable it, however that change doesn't seem to apply. When I reopen the system preferences, it's back to its original state.
This is on a powerbook g4 1.5ghz, OSX 10.4.5 with the latest updates.
also, I don't know if this is related or not, but if I click on the security icon in system preferences, system preferences crashes immediately.
any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, Alan.
1. If you performed a hacked install of Front Row on your Mac, that has been know to cause this problem, particularly after recent Mac OS X updates. If that is the case, see my "Uninstalling the Front Row hack" FAQ.
2. SystemUIServer crashes often indicate an incompatible third-party menu extras. Menu extras are the icons on the right side of the menu bar and managed by SystemUIServer. Many third-party menu extras are launched as either Startup or Login Items, usually Login Items. See my "Troubleshooting Startup and Login Items" FAQ for steps that might help you with this problem.
3. As a general check, run the procedure specified in my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ. Perform the steps therein in the order specified.
4. With respect to the System Preferences crashes, immediately after one occurs, check Console for clues.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Menu bar items disappear, and external hard disks not mounting

Hi,
This problem started yesterday. I start up my Mac, and none of the menu bar items in the top-right of the screen show up. Then I noticed that none of my external hard disks had mounted.
Looking at the Activity Monitor, I saw that sustemuiserver was not running.
Reading around, I discovered that this usually follows a FrontRow hack (which I haven't installed). I tried deleting the ~/Library/preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist file and logging out and back in again. Everything seems to work again, for a while. However, the same thing happened this morning.
Has anyone else experienced this, and anyone know a fix to stop it from happening?
Thanks!
Tom

I've been having the same problem for a while (I believe since 10.5.3). I have reinstalled OSX, installed OSX 10.5.6 combo hoping that it would fix it, but nothing yet. I have the problem only when I insert an expresscard into the slot and restart. It connects to a PCI expansion chassis. When I restart with the ExpressCard installed, all menu items dissappear and I can't eject volumes (hard drives) from the desktop. If I restart without the ExpressCard in, the menu bars seem to work properly. I tried with an older G4 running 10.4.11, with a CardBus card and the same chassis, and that worked fine... all menu bar items displayed and worked properly and I could eject disks.
I have also tried creating new users, but that didn't work either.

Menu bar items disappearing

For reasons I cannot explain, my date/time is no longer showing on the menubar.
When I loo in preferences, the check box is now UNchecked (I didn't do that) and when I check it, I get the colorful pinwheel for a minute, then it auto-unchecks the box again.
Also a few other icons are now missing (airplay and a few others too).
Any ideas as to why this happened and how I can get it back?
The last action taken was to install Java update. Not sure as to the relevence of that but an fyi nonetheless.

Just an update on this, I passed this laptop on to my wife, formatted the drive and installed Mavericks.
Have not experienced the issue since.

Managing Menu Bar Items

I've tried to limit the number of apps that have a menu bar presence, and when I work on my home machine with a 20" monitor, I don't have too many problems, but working with my 13" MB at work, most of my menu bar items disappear under the menus of most programs. Even the Finder's menu is beginning to cover up some menu bar icons.
My question is: is there an aggregation app that lets me "stuff" menu bar icons in it, much like (say) Overflow does for the dock? I'd like a single menu bar icon that, when clicked, allows me to access other icons that used to reside on the menu bar, but now don't have to, leaving me with a clearer menu bar and all my menu bar icons accessible.
If something like this isn't available, are there any tricks for dealing with this problem of having too many menu bar icons to access in all programs?
Thanks!

The first trick is to get rid of the 'enhancer' that allows applications to add their own menu bar items to Apple's, if you have any such applications. (See my last post in Seemingly random freezes and general sluggishness for more about the difference between menu & status items & why you should try to avoid non-Apple menu bar items.) This would include any aggregation app -- Apple does not provide this capability for much the same reasons it doesn't provide support for third party menu items.
Aside from that, all you can do without potentially affecting the stability & security of the OS is to turn off the menu icon display for selected Apple-provided menu bar items, & perhaps to use the smallest format for the date & time icon you can live with.

What the???? Menu Bar Item Prefs getting dropped at restart

This is weird and I hope maybe someone else has an idea why this is happening.
When i got my new mac pro last week I zeroed the HD and installed a streamlined copy of 10.4.9 from the install disc... i opted out on trial software, no extra languages, printer drivers etc.
After updating to 10.4.10, setting all my preferences and loading a bunch of software I started having problems with my menu bar items disappearing from the bar... even date and time. I reset preferences and locked all the panes. Still the only items that stayed up after a restart were sound, airport and remote dektop. Assuming some software conflict or bug in 10.4.10 i unistalled several widegts and apps but could never get the menu bar back up.
So, I zeroed again and reinstalled the same streamlined OS 10.4.9 (from the mac pro install discs) and this time did NOT update to 10.4.10. Menu bar was fine until a couple restarts and now it's gone again.... no extra software has been installed.
What gives? Any ideas please? I gotta have the menu bar if for no other reason than menu meters and time/date.
Thanks.

Choose Go to Folder from the Finder's Go menu, enter ~/Library/Preferences/ as the folder's path, and throw away the item named com.apple.systemuiserver.plist inside. You will then need to reset some or all of the preferences that control what's displayed in the menu bar. Locking preference panes prevents someone using the computer from changing the setting without an admin password; it does not prevent the changes from failing to be written or recognized properly or the computer changing the setting on its own.
(22550)

Delay when opening Airport menu bar item following Security Update 2007-005

When I first got this computer, there was one annoying quirk: when I clicked on the Airport menu bar item at the top right, there would be a roughly 1 second pause before the menu actually appeared. I recall hearing other people having the same experience at the time. Airport worked fine, but this delay was really annoying: since you're not sure if the system registered your click, so you click again, but then it registers the second click which causes the menu to disappear as soon as it appears, and you click again, and fall into this ridiculous cycle of fighting the sluggish menu item.
Before long, this issue disappeared following some update (I can't remember which).
After installing Security Update 2007-005, this exact same annoyance has reappeared. (I can confirm that the presence of the 802.11n Enabler update has no effect on the problem.)
Is anyone else noticing this? Is there anything I can do to fix it?

Hi
Can you tell people how you cured the problem, so that those who search looking for answers to a similar problem know how to fix it?
Steve
I haven't got a problem myself, BTW)

Why did my menu bar items dissappear? please help

my menu bar items such as wireless, time, and battery life even spot light are not showing anymore, i installed applejack and it did nothing, i tried going into prefrences i click on adding them to the menu bar, but the check mark disappears after 5 sec and nothing shows up, please help any ideas

Did you try just logging out and back in. While you can go into menu extras and start double clicking desired menu items I think doing that way may not be permanent. You should go to the individual System Preferences and make sure the appropriate checkboxes are set to place that prefrences in the menu.

Unknown menu bar item

Does anybody recognize this menu bar item? It shows up in 2 places every now and then, usually faintly towards the middle, and darker towards the right of the menu bar, and neithjer of them responds to any clicks (right, left, option, command or combinations thereof). If I restart or log out and in it's usually gone—anybody seen this before?
Thanks!

quite a lot:
CopyPastePro
Things
Time Tracker
AdobeResourceSynchronizer
Cinch
AppHelpCleaner
MsgFiler
Rogue Amoeba Scheduler
MenuCalendarClock iCal
Dropbox
ClamXavSentry
CrashPlan menu bar
Knox
In addition I run LittleSnitch and iStatMenus.
I can account for all of these apps, when I quit them their icons disappear, but the annoying unknown one(s) don't.

Menu Bar Icons Disappeared and other issues after Security Update 2006-001

Hi,
I was really affraid when i've heard about the Safari vulnerability, so I was really happy to see the Security Update 2006-001.
But after installing it, I'm having regrets:
* mouse speed turned to default settings
* system preferences crashes when i try to access to Mouse & Keyboard
* all the menu bar icons disappeared: Bluetooth, Airport, Time, EVEN Spotlight
* Finder is slower...
I've repaired disk permissions but: nothing happens....
What should I do please?
Should I wait?

How did you fix it? I'm having the same problem
myself.
Mandy,
I'm gonna tell you a secret, just like i said my problem wasn't due to the Security Update but because of Front Row.
How? Because, I've hacked my iMac (without iSight) to install FrontRow (with an update), and i've installed the Security Update at the same time. Restarted my computer, and thought the problem was due to the Security Update.
If you did the same thing, here's the trick to remove Front Row:
Delete Front Row (/System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app)
Install/reinstall the the latest Mac OS X Update Combo.
This article assumes you haven’t tried installing Front Row before without the use of Enabler. If you have used one of the very early versions of Front Row (ones installed without Enabler):
Delete Front Row (/System/Library/CoreServices/Front Row.app)
Delete the preference file (/System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.frontrow.plist)
Remove any Login Items that launch Front Row (System Preferences >Accounts >User >Login Items)
Disable any shortcuts managed by third-party applications that launched Front Row.
Reboot and reinstall.

Menu bar items constantly reloading.

A question to aid me help a friend this time.
Running 10.3.9
The menu bar items keep reloading.
I have repaired all permissions. Done a full system optimisation. Trashed GUIserver files.
No 3rd party haxies or the like.
Have looked in GUIserver crashlog, and it is constantly updated.
Not sure where to go next. Any thoughts?
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

JKB,
Just to cover all bases, are you following the correct procedure (?) found @:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=151701
Sorry to suggest something basic but I do not know your level of expertise and just wanted to make sure....don't take offense.....
That's odd (that it will not allow you to create a new account. And you have clicked the lock after filling in the fields and it still will not hold the account?
I haven't had the problem myself so I would only be guessing at this point.
When you are trying to create the account are you getting any error messages when you click "ok" or "done" or whatever the pane asks (I can't remember the procedure off the top of my head)? The account adding pane disappears and nothing? Or just goes back to the main accounts pane?
Hopefully someone will pop in with more expertise or some other suggestions but for now I will give it some thought and post back if "I" can think of anything else to try.
littleshoulders [:-)

Menu bar items lost in 10.4.5

I've just updated to 10.4.5, hoping that my menu bar items would return. No help. When I had gone to 10.4.4, all my menu bar icons
- fax status
- time and date
- Internet Connect PPPoE status
- spotlight
- Classic status
had disappeared. I've tried the obvious, like turning the "show" back on in the various preference panels, but they don't come back. I've trashed various preference files and tried disinstalling some apps that list discussion labeled as suspect. No help.
Is this a bug, or is there a recovery that is not obvious?

Phil,
If the solutions offered in this thread do not help you, please click here:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=752&start=0
To start a new topic with more detailed information on your system:
1. Have you installed any third party menubar addons?
2. Do you know how much free disk space do you have?
3. Did you repair permissions before and after your update?
4. Did you backup your machine prior to this event happening, and what seemed to trigger it?

FileVolt removes Menu Bar Items

I am having a problm were after i enabled FileVault, the items in the menu bar disappear (bluetooth, iChat, Keychain access, and ClamXav) It seemed to occure when I restart the system, and it ask if I want to save space, due to FileVault using too much space, it goes thrugh whatever it does to save space, then shuts down. But then when I start back up, the menu bar items are gone and have to be restored. Any ideas?

Hi, Alan.
1. If you performed a hacked install of Front Row on your Mac, that has been know to cause this problem, particularly after recent Mac OS X updates. If that is the case, see my "Uninstalling the Front Row hack" FAQ.
2. SystemUIServer crashes often indicate an incompatible third-party menu extras. Menu extras are the icons on the right side of the menu bar and managed by SystemUIServer. Many third-party menu extras are launched as either Startup or Login Items, usually Login Items. See my "Troubleshooting Startup and Login Items" FAQ for steps that might help you with this problem.
3. As a general check, run the procedure specified in my "Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption" FAQ. Perform the steps therein in the order specified.
4. With respect to the System Preferences crashes, immediately after one occurs, check Console for clues.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Is it possible to change the height of Spry Menu Bar items?

I'm new to websites and have been trying to understand the CSS of the Spry menu bar. I've managed to put a horizontal menu bar in place and with the help of some previous discussions in this forum, have changed the colours of the menu items and have even managed to centre the text - Thanks!
However, I really would like to have a smaller menu bar - height wise.
I've tried reducing the default height of the menu bar items by adding a height and by reducing the font size and padding. The results have been varied. In Firefox and in Dreamweaver's 'live view' there is still a thin line showing underneath my horizontal menu which is the background colour of the div my menu sits in. In IE there is a similar 'chunk missing' from the bottom of the items.
Is this something that can be done? I've seen lots of help on how to change the width of the items, but have not found any which suggest that the height can be changed.
Gill

Sure. You just need to be thorough. Keep in mind that in a Spry Menu Bar you are making the link-text in the list-items block elements, so you will want to change the line-height of the a element. Pick style selectors in the css stylesheet that end in a, with or without an additional class (a.classhere), and play with the line-height.
Another attribute you can consider is the difference in height between Cap and lower case and All caps. You can usually get away with a smaller line-height and a smaller font-size with all caps, because there are no descenders on the text to require more line-height. Keep in mind also that when you state a line-height, your text will center vertically in the line-height, as far as I know, so you might even get away without top and bottom padding.
Beth

Missing Menu bar items - last effort

I've searched and read here and found no solutions, so I'm posting this as a final attempt.
I'm working with a system new to me. It had OS 9 on it when I got it. I checked for firmware updates that might be needed and it seemed current, so I installed 10.4 from my retail disc (versus disk from my G5). No problems. I did a custom install with none of the foreign (to USofA) languages and only a couple of the printer manufacturers drivers. Once installation complete, I finished the setup. Repaired disk permissions, then ran the stand alone 10.4.6 combo update. Repair disk permissions again - then used software update as a shoping list for needed updates and downloaded most of them and installed in the order released. Those I didn't download, I used software update to install. From the MacFixit site, I found that reinstalling the combo update fixed this issue for some - it did not for me. I also tried, System Preferences, and turning them on, but typically they would not show and in one instance (I think it was Sound, volume control) the box would check, from my clicking on it, then the beach ball, then would unchecked - all on it's own.
This is the second rebuild of the system and still the issue persists. The first rebuild was with a 200 GB HD in the system, but it's too large to make full use of with the stock controller, so I purchased new 120 GB HD.
I have no third party menu bar items and almost no third party software on the system. The primary piece is the current version of Cocktail, which I have been using to repair permissions, etc. though I have also used Apple's Disk Utility for the same and seen no difference. I have also tried deleting various Apple pref files, per other threads in this forum - to no avail.
One last tidbit - in case it means something to someone - restarts on this system take forever and sometimes I have to do a manual shut down holding the power button in. This is not anything I've seen before - on the dozens of systems I've worked with/on.
At this point, I see nothing more to try than move to an earlier version of Mac OS X, perhaps 10.3 even, though I really wanted 10.4 for my wife's system. I've worked with 10.4.6 on many systems and not seen this, including my dual 800 G4 and my dual 2.7 G5.

No FW or USB devices, other than Apple USB keyboard plugged into the cpu and Apple single button mouse plugged into the keyboard.
BUT - I may have figured out what was going on. This is the slowest system I've put 10.4 on and it's been awhile since 10.4 has been out. I started thinking about what kinds of issues people had when it was first released and I recalled a lot of people getting hung up by the initial Spotlight indexing. Since I had a hunch this was somehow a factor, I decided to try turning sleep off and letting the system sit for awhile. When I started it and worked with the first five or ten minutes, the icons were not there. But when I came back an hour or so later, they were. I restarted the system and it did so in the manner I would expect, not hanging as it had all the other times. Once restarted the icons showed up. I have since installed the stand alone 10.4.2 combo and restarted and the icons are still there. Will go for 10.4.6 and see what happens.
My initial theory at this point is this. This is the slowest system I've put 10.4 on and I hadn't seen much of an impact on my other systems from the initial Spotlight indexing, but for whatever reason, it seem to really impact this system. I didn't see this on my dual 800 G4, nor the dual 2.7 G5, but I think that is what was going on with this system. That's my current theory until I hear something that seems more plausible.

Menu Bar Items Disappear!!

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